The third option, radiation damage to the plates, sounds the most plausible to me.
It would pre-expose the plate in the same manner as a double exposure in a roll of film so the “stars” would have already been on the plate before use.
We could point the JWST at it just to be sure though.
the ones that went “missing” look different than the rest of the stars too. Too bright and chunky in my opinion
The question is: On how many observations before 1952 could these three stars be identified? Could the platter of 08:52 simply be contaminated?
Didn’t realize they had pixelated photos in 1952…
If you find that interesting, the history of pixels and computer displays gles far back.
They had pen touch displays all the way back in 1946, it’s actually pretty interesting how long some of the tech that exploded in the mid 2000s has actually been around.
https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-true-history-of-the-pixel/
The public library in my town when I was a kid in the 80s replaced their card catalog with a touchscreen computer system. It barely worked, sometimes you had to press below where you were supposed to press, but the idea was cool.
That was a super interesting little dive thank you.
Did they try retracing their steps?
Did they turn it off and on again in '52?
Failing that, just ask one of their mothers.
Anyone else get the X-files theme in their head after reading that title?
Just read the article, my money’s on radioactive dust.
Bug in software. They were removed by garbage collector even though their reference can still be accessed. Hence render inconsistency.
Spooky
Only because of the way it’s written up. Writing an article about instrument failure isn’t as appealing to a large audience. Even though there are a lot of people who do find that kind of stuff very interesting.
Maybe the instruments don’t want us to see those stars.
I can guarantee they don’t want that. They don’t want anything at all.
Maybe that’s what they want you to think.
I guess they went to spend their holidays in Andromeda or something.
