NASA Technique for Manipulating Satellite Photos Now Reveals Ancient Images

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway Jon Harman poses in front of an example of the Rancho Bernardo style of Native American artwork that’s barely visible until Dstretch is applied. The institutional report frames the development in practical terms and ties it to the broader mission or observing effort.

This matters because astronomy does not advance on single detections. The field builds confidence by accumulating independent observations across different wavelengths, instruments and epochs until isolated signals become defensible conclusions. What looks convincing in one dataset can dissolve when a second instrument looks at the same target, and what looks marginal can solidify when follow-up campaigns confirm the original reading. The current standard requires that a result survive this triangulation before the community treats it as settled. Algorithm NASA first applied to satellite imagery is now used to peer into antiquity. 3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Jon Harman poses in front of an example of the Rancho Bernardo style of Native American artwork.

Before after before after before after Before and After Dstretch applied to Cave of San Borjitas in Baja California, Mexico Curtain Toggle 2-Up Image Details As Jon Harman was. Jon Harman He said he fulfills about 200 requests for Dstretch per year.

So that’s been cool. ” Read More Share Details Last Updated Sep 08. Article Algorithm NASA first applied to satellite imagery is now used to peer into antiquity High in the central tower in the ancient Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat, paintings.

They were discovered between 2010 and 2012, along with about 200 other paintings throughout the complex, by an archaeologist using a method conceived at NASA’s Jet Propulsion. Around 2005, rock art enthusiast Jon Harman saw NASA images depicting the Martian surface with and without the application of decorrelation stretch.

What gives the story weight is not just the object itself, but the way the measurement trims the range of plausible physical explanations. Astronomy has accumulated enough cases to know that the most interesting results are rarely the ones that confirm expectations cleanly; they are the ones that confirm some expectations while complicating others, or that open a parameter space that previous instruments could not reach. The scientific community evaluates these contributions by asking whether the new data constrain a model in a way that older data could not, and whether those constraints survive systematic review.

I Googled it and found a NASA paper that explained how to do the algorithm,” he said. I knew from my medical imaging experience that I could do it, so I did. ” The paper was written in 1996 by Ronald Alley, a JPL employee developing applications for the Advanced.

Because the account originates with NASA News Releases, it functions best as a primary institutional report that is close to the data and operations, not as independent scientific validation. Institutional communications are produced by organizations with legitimate interests in presenting their work in a favorable light, which does not make them unreliable but does make them partial. Details that complicate the narrative, including instrument limitations, unexpected failures and results below projections, tend to be minimized relative to progress messages. Technical documentation and peer-reviewed publications, where they exist, provide the complementary layer that institutional releases cannot substitute.

The next step is to see whether other instruments and other wavelengths tell the same story. Campaigns with JWST, the VLT, the forthcoming Extremely Large Telescopes and radio arrays will provide the spectral coverage and spatial resolution needed to move from detection to physical characterization. The timeline for that kind of confirmation is typically measured in years, not months, which is worth keeping in mind when reading the current result.

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