Nishina (crater)

Transcription

In Part 1, we debunked Jarrah's claim that the black spot in this false color image, indicating the presence of iron oxide in the area around the Apollo 15 landing site, should be visible in the LRO photo and any surface photos taken of the area by the astronauts. In Part 2, we debunked Jarrah's claim that if this bright area in a JAXA photo, which is the sunlit half of a shallow crater, was brightened up by the lunar module when it landed, then the lunar module should be in the middle of the area. All that is necessary, actually, is that the lunar module had flown near the crater. And Jarrah puts the lunar module and the crater in the same area of disturbance. The two articles, which Jarrah thinks discredit the LRO photo of the Apollo 15 landing site, instead seem to validate it. As far as I'm concerned, the video should have ended there, but Jarrah continues, repeating several times that the LRO image cannot be the lunar module because there is no halo surrounding it. I think we've sufficiently buried that argument. Then he says that ALL scientists agree that the disturbance caused by the engine plume should be very noticeable in the LRO image. What scientists? Give me names. Nobody with credible credentials would say that. Obviously it's wrong, or you would have noticed a visible disturbance in the pan camera photos, and the surface photos taken by the astronauts. You don't. And I don't see any technical reason for there to be a physical disturbance in the area in any of the photos, except perhaps under the lunar module itself. Again, Jarrah has no data to backup what he says. It's all conjecture. Then, to somehow support his assertions, Jarrah goes on to read out of the hoax conspiracists' bible, Bill Kaysing's self published book, "We Never Went to the Moon." He reads a passage describing how Kaysing thought the astronauts should have set a timer and blown up the descent stage after they left the moon so that people on earth could see the flash of light and know they were there. He even suggests burying charges to make a dust cloud that would visible from earth. The man was a lunatic. And, I really don't understand how this relates to the LRO images at all. I can only guess that Jarrah is somehow thinking that this is related to the dust cloud caused by the lunar module descent engine. If that's the case, the cloud should have settle 40 years ago and it would not be visible in any LRO, Clementine, or Selene/Kaguya photos taken over the past 20 years. Then he states again that you should be able to see the disturbance in the original surface photos, which obviously you don't. We've gone over this. Look. What IF the area around the lunar module became brighter? Even if the albedo in the area increased by one and a half times, you couldn't detect that with the naked eye. Not using a jpeg image anyway. Do the math. Assume the albedo of the landing site was 7% before the landing. With a 10 degree solar elevation, the surface would reflect 1.2% of the sunlight. A crater wall with a 60-degree inclination would reflect 6.6%. If there was a localized one and a half times increase in brightness on the surface, you're talking an albedo of 10.5%. In that case, the surface reflection increases 0.6%, while the crater wall reflects 3.3% more. This image shows the effect of increasing the albedo associated a medium gray tone (in the upper left corner) by 3.3% (in the bottom right corner). This is how much brighter the crater would get. See the difference? Try a 2-times increase in albedo then. Now do you see a difference? Perhaps putting a border around it would help. This change in luminance might account for the "halo effect" that the JAXA scientists were able to detect by comparing average values of craters. But how does any of this relate to the LRO image? It doesn't. It's just a rehash of the old hoax conspiracists' diatribe. It's filler. Jarrah then cleverly segways back to the Clementine photos and plays an excerpt from a Penn Jillette radio show from February 5th, 2007. This was cool. The show featured Joe Rogan (well known comedian and host of "Fear Factor") versus Dr. Phil Plait (PhD in astronomy, a.k.a. the Bad Astronomer). Comedian vs. doctor. A fantastic matchup. It's part of a very good series, which Joe Rogan apparently put up on youtube. An excellent series actually, of 10 videos - 86 minutes total run time, I think. Entertaining out the wazoo. Anyway, the excerpt that Jarrah plays came from Day 1, Parts 4 and 5 of the series. Now, if you back up and play the entire part 4 video, you catch the beginning of the conversation on the Clementine photo. Rogan insists that the black spot on the photo is a blast crater. Plait disagrees and says that it's merely a disturbance on the surface. Rogan then says that the black spot should be visible on the photos the astronauts took. Which, we've determined it doesn't have to be. Right? They go back and forth for a while. Plait trying to use different combinations of words that maybe Rogan will understand. Then, at 5:55 into the Part 4 video, Plait makes a comment that he thought the photo was a false color image or a negative, which was absolutely right. Of course, Rogan argues it's not, he's seen it and it is clearly a normal light photo. Yada-yada. Then we get to the part of the discussion that Jarrah picks up, which continues onto the next video in the series. In the excerpt, Rogan repeats ad nauseam that the spot in the Clementine image looks like a crater to him and should be visible in photos taken on the lunar surface by the Apollo 15 astronauts. Plait, who has already tried to explain why this is NOT so, says no, it's basically just dust that was blown around. Which it is. Then at the end of Jarrah's excerpt, Rogan complains that you can't see any evidence of any dust blown around. Plait mentions that in some pictures, like the one's I'm showing now, you can see dark radial streaks under the lunar module that were scorched into the surface by the descent engine. I would call these sweep patterns, because they look to me like someone took a broom and swiped at the surface. Of course, Rogan says he's seen ALL the pictures and there's nothing even remotely similar to what Plait's talking about in ANY of the pictures from ANY of the Apollo missions. Then Jarrah politely cuts off just as Plait mentions that he might be wrong about the scorch marks. He wasn't wrong. He was just trying to move on. And, here are the scorch marks, sweep patterns, cobbling, whatever you want to call it, that Rogan says do not exist. If you've not seen the series, I'd hate to spoil it for you any further. It's very good. I'd recommend it to both conspiracists and unobservant propagandists alike. Go see it. This is taking way longer than I thought it would. We don't have time to review Jarrah's final attempt to discredit the LRO photo of the Apollo 15 landing site. So, I guess we'll save that for Part 4 of this series. Chow moon hoax conspirators, wherever you are.