On the other hand, perhaps the Mars photo release is indicative of a systemic change. Perhaps it is time for NASA to awaken our playful curiosity like it did in the days of old. Maybe we will see it shift its image from the intelligence agency modus operandi back to the lovable puzzle-solving geeks we always knew were there, somewhere, tied up in the back with sweat socks stuffed down their throats, eh?

News Flash for http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com fans:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wow! Researcher @ NASA comments on Kent Steadman's www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ ! Imagine, after infinite faceless .gov hits, a real person responds... not with a form letter either, but takes the time to post a thoughtful critique in response to specific items on your site! I've got a warm fuzzy for this Joe person at NASA. It is no longer soley a faceless bureaucracy that does not return my phone calls. Hats off to Joe Gurman!

"Other than one small exception this represents a BREAKTHROUGH!"-Kent

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Subj: rogues page Date: 6/1/00 5:24:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: gurman@gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) To: bardsquill@aol.com

Hi -

You certainly have an interesting collection of non-solar, non-cosmic ray features observed by the SOH LASCO coronagraphs on your: www.cyberspaceorbit.com/rogues.html page. I believe the LASCO team all agree that they are foreground features (i.e., not solar in origin), though I don't recall hearing much serious speculation on their origin. The length of the various tracks is a reflection of the objects' apparent motion during the LASCO exposure times (typically 12 - 25 seconds). Some of those that appear clearly to be out of focus have been estimated to be only a few meters in front of the SOHO spacecraft, and are therefore probably debris from the spacecraft itself. The sharper-appearing features could, however, be much farther away.

I would object to the inclusion of the EIT image you title "strgte5sm.jpg" with the LASCO images, however, since the long, nearly horizontal feature in it is definitely of solar origin. Whenever we take time series of images in our 304 Angstrom bandpass, we observe these "bifurcated jets" (i.e., jets brighter along their edges than in the middle). There may be some streaking due to the even longer (generally ~ 32 s) exposure time for EIT 304 Å images, but their appearance on succeeding frames, and their origin in solar active regions makes it clear that they are solar in origin.

Best,

Joe Gurman US project scientist for SOHO Co-Investigator, SOHO-EIT