It's well known that higher solar wind/CMEs density/speed/etc that comes with the peak of the 11 year intensity cycles scatters cosmic rays before they enter the inner heliosphere. Combine this with the 1~3 years it takes for the solar wind to travel out through the heliosphere and you get the phase difference. Really cool unintended sensor empirical data on it though.
Don't try to correlate with the sun spots, correlate with the solar wind/cmes from the spots getting out far enough to effectively scatter the incoming cosmic rays away.
terminalbraid•Aug 21, 2026
The paper claims directly "the rate of degradation over time remains unsatisfactorily unpredictable" but you are claiming the authors do not understand or are unaware of the point you are making?
superkuh•Aug 21, 2026
I think what I explained is known by anyone in solar physics. I cannot believe they would not have discussed it. It's absence in the paper is weird. But I think unpredictable refers more to LEO in the context of the paper where things are indeed more dynamic that just the 11 year periodicity of cosmic rays from solar activity causing scattering in the heliosphere.
DANmode•Aug 21, 2026
Identifying a mechanism is not predicting its rate.
There may be another variable they’re trying to pin down.
3lambda•Aug 21, 2026
I thought it only takes a few days for solar wind to travel from the sun to the Earth? Can you clarify?
ck2•Aug 21, 2026
you should see what cosmic rays do to space telescopes
public almost never sees what raw images look like
they also slowly destroy the sensors since they are physical particles moving at almost the speed of light
r_lee•Aug 21, 2026
thanks for the links, that's really interesting to look at
do you happen to know how exactly those artifacts are cleaned up?
shrubble•Aug 21, 2026
One way is to take a “blank” picture which will then show just the noise; then use that as a reference for what can be removed from the image.
rbanffy•Aug 21, 2026
The blank should only show long term damage. Hits while the sensor is collecting light can be averaged out from multiple readings of the sensor.
lofaszvanitt•Aug 21, 2026
photoshop ;D, or using multiple pictures
javier2•Aug 21, 2026
its actually quite doable. any cosmic rays will not be present in two pictures in a row. any permanent damage will be exactly the same in all pictures.
icegreentea2•Aug 21, 2026
The blog link describes the cleanup process.
They take two pictures, each taking up half the total observation period. If you subtract the two images, the deltas should be the cosmic ray flashes. You can then subtract those out. They use two pictures as opposed to more to minimize the impact of readout noise.
To deal with "stuck pixel" type errors, they can slightly shift the camera between the two observations. They can counter act the shift before doing the initial subtraction.
thank you so much for this link! I have been trying to search for footage of this phenomenon (in the pre-llm era) 10+y ago
adonovan•Aug 21, 2026
Can anyone tell whether these exposures occurred through the camera lens (from fallout particles in the sky of the depicted scenes) or in post- (or pre-) exposure handling of the film from hot dust carried by the photographer?
plmpsu•Aug 21, 2026
Oh wow, I thought those were stars at first.
two_handfuls•Aug 21, 2026
This sounds like the "hmm this is strange" first step of discovery.
3 Comments
Don't try to correlate with the sun spots, correlate with the solar wind/cmes from the spots getting out far enough to effectively scatter the incoming cosmic rays away.
There may be another variable they’re trying to pin down.
public almost never sees what raw images look like
RAW https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral...
FINAL https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral...
* https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2010/04/12/how-to-handle-hubble-i...
they also slowly destroy the sensors since they are physical particles moving at almost the speed of light
do you happen to know how exactly those artifacts are cleaned up?
They take two pictures, each taking up half the total observation period. If you subtract the two images, the deltas should be the cosmic ray flashes. You can then subtract those out. They use two pictures as opposed to more to minimize the impact of readout noise.
To deal with "stuck pixel" type errors, they can slightly shift the camera between the two observations. They can counter act the shift before doing the initial subtraction.