A glint in the eye: Photographic plate archive searches for non-terrestrial artefacts

Villarroel, Beatriz; Mattsson, Lars; Guergouri, Hichem; Solano, Enrique; Geier, Stefan; Dom, Onyeuwaoma Nnaemeka; Ward, Martin J.

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.01.039

A glint in the eye: Photographic plate archive searches for non-terrestrial artefacts

Villarroel, Beatriz; Mattsson, Lars; Guergouri, Hichem; Solano, Enrique; Geier, Stefan; Dom, Onyeuwaoma Nnaemeka; Ward, Martin J.

Authors

Beatriz Villarroel

Lars Mattsson

Hichem Guergouri

Enrique Solano

Stefan Geier

Onyeuwaoma Nnaemeka Dom

Professor Martin Ward martin.ward@durham.ac.uk
External Examiner (PGR)

Abstract

In this paper, we present a simple strategy to identify Non-Terrestrial artefacts [NTAs; Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu (2012)] in or near geosynchronous Earth orbits (GEOs). We show that even the small pieces of reflective debris in orbit around the Earth can be identified through searches for multiple transients in old photographic plate material exposed before the launch of first human satellite in 1957. In order to separate between possible false point-like sources on photographic plates from real reflections, we present calculations to quantify the associated probabilities of alignments. We show that in an image with nine “simultaneous transients” at least four or five point sources along a line within a arcmin2 image box are a strong indicator of NTAs, corresponding to significance levels of 2.5 to . This given methodology can then be applied to set an upper limit to the prevalence of NTAs with reflective surfaces in geosynchronous orbits.

Citation

Villarroel, B., Mattsson, L., Guergouri, H., Solano, E., Geier, S., Dom, O. N., & Ward, M. J. (2022). A glint in the eye: Photographic plate archive searches for non-terrestrial artefacts. Acta Astronautica, 194, 106-113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.01.039

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 26, 2022
Online Publication Date	Feb 14, 2022
Publication Date	2022-05
Deposit Date	May 26, 2022
Publicly Available Date	May 26, 2022
Journal	Acta Astronautica
Print ISSN	0094-5765
Publisher	Elsevier
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	194
Pages	106-113
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.01.039

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