this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Astronomy

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In 1952, a group of three 'stars' vanished—astronomers still can't find them (phys.org)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by paul0207@lemmy.sdf.org to c/astronomy@mander.xyz
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/6593278

On July 19, 1952, Palomar Observatory was undertaking a photographic survey of the night sky. Part of the project was to take multiple images of the same region of sky, to help identify things such as asteroids. At around 8:52 that evening a photographic plate captured the light of three stars clustered together. At a magnitude of 15, they were reasonably bright in the image. At 9:45 pm the same region of sky was captured again, but this time the three stars were nowhere to be seen. In less than an hour they had completely vanished.

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[–] leave_it_blank@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Link to the story:

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-group-stars-vanishedastronomers.html

From the article: A third idea is that they weren't objects at all. Palomar Observatory isn't too far from the New Mexico deserts where nuclear weapons testing occurred. Radioactive dust from the tests could have contaminated the photographic plates, creating bright spots on some images and not others. Given similar vanishings seen on other photographic plates of the 1950s, this seems quite possible.

[–] Artaca@lemdro.id 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Trisolarans made their dark domain.

[–] Pringles@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Or somebody trapped MorningLightMountain

[–] makyo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I immediately thought of those books too

[–] DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

In ALL liklihood,this was something teresstrial in origin. Radioactive dust, even just car headlights getting reflected by a raindrop or something could do it...

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The cleaning service came in and wiped the crud off the lens at 9:15

[–] argh_another_username@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

Starkiller base needed fuel.

[–] tkk13909@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

Sorry. I was hungry.

[–] Nastybutler@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

So who's going to post this same article tomorrow?