Of late the UFO neighborhood has gone right into a frenzy over some papers written by astronomer Beatriz Villarroel (with co-author Steven Bruehl, also Gary Nolan, and others), claiming to have discovered “transients” on Palomar Sky Survey plates taken (largely) between 1949 and 1957. These are being interpreted as one thing mysterious, most likely aliens placing issues in geosynchronous orbit, objects which have since disappeared.
A superb abstract of Dr. Villarroel’s strategies is in this paper by Isabela Melamed, Not Seeing the Star Cloud for the Stars. She writes,
Inside a ten×10 arcminute part — concerning the dimension of a dime held at arm’s size — they noticed 9 stars, solely to see them disappear half-hour later within the subsequent blue-sensitive plate.
This was weird — stars don’t vanish that quick. No identified phenomenon explains it. Villarroel proposed a daring speculation: might the 9 transients be reflections from non-terrestrial artifacts in geosynchronous orbit, maybe extraterrestrial?
Caption from Dr. Villarroel’s paper: “4 exposures of the three ×3 arcmin area of sky centered on the triple transient recognized in July 1952. Higher left: The POSS I pink picture on July 19, 1952 at 8:52 (UT) containing the triple transient simply above middle. Higher proper: A ten m publicity POSS I blue picture of the identical area taken instantly afterward with no proof of the triple transient. Decrease left and proper: POSS I pink (left) and blue (proper) photographs taken two months later (September 14, 1952) exhibiting the transient nonetheless gone. Tailored from Solano et al. (2024).”
Frankly, anybody utilizing that argument for the existence of anomalies clearly doesn’t perceive why the Palomar Sky Survey (and lots of others) imaged in pink and blue. Astronomers need to decide the “Shade Temperature” of particular person stars, which reveals quite a bit concerning the star’s make-up. The astronomer measures the apparent brightness of a star in red and blue light. Then the calculation of B-V (blue minus red) brightness tells us what category this star belongs to.
It’s not shocking in any respect that some stars seen on the red-sensitive plate don’t seem on the blue-sensitive plate, and vice-versa. Very pink stars (sort M) emit little or no gentle within the blue a part of the spectrum, and possibly wouldn’t be seen on the blue-sensitive plate. The identical can be true of stars Kind O or B, which might most likely be faint or invisible on the red-sensitive plate.
I’m questioning if Dr. Villarroel or her colleagues carried out the plain, reverse search. That’s, look at the blue-sensitive plate for “transients” that don’t seem on the pink.
After I was taking astronomy lessons at Northwestern a couple of hundred years in the past, we realized the next phrase to assist us keep in mind the completely different spectral forms of stars:
O, Be A Positive Lady, Kiss Me.
You may’t say that any extra!
