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From: levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Flashes in space
Message-ID: <1298@ttrdc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Nov-86 18:47:58 EST
Article-I.D.: ttrdc.1298
Posted: Wed Nov  5 18:47:58 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Nov-86 20:52:42 EST
References: <130@cpro.UUCP> <3640@columbia.UUCP>
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Organization: AT&T, Computer Systems Division, Skokie, IL
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In article <3640@columbia.UUCP>, zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu (Zdenek Radouch) writes:
>In article <130@cpro.UUCP> asgard@cpro.UUCP (J.R. Stoner) writes:
>>
>>No.  The famous story was about John Glenn's ride into orbit in the Gemini.
>>He noted that sparkling objects were hovering outside the viewport of the
>>capsule and speculated on what they could be...
>
>>				....They could not have been Cerenkov
>>flashes, as those are photon events and therefore could not be objects
>>maintaining an orbit.
>
>Don't be so fast with your conclusions. Let me remind you that the eye
>is a very very bad optical device. It is the brain what makes you see
>so clearly! I'm not going to start the never ending discussion about how

Perhaps Glenn was mistaken, but wasn't his impression of something which
was _hovering_, that is, not moving?  Cerenkov flashes would just appear as
sparkles with no particular position and orientation.  (And what medium
were the flashes taking place in?  Space outside the viewport was pretty
well a vacuum.  If in the eye, the flashes would seem to follow Glenn's gaze.)
-- 
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