Dear Critical Mass,Critical Mass wrote:That's just the thing Simon, they do deny this...simonshack wrote:I don't think anyone would deny that there's been a constant traffic (ever since the dawn of times) - visible with naked eyes - of Near-Earth-Asteroids
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In short Cluesforum & it's contributors have some work to do in regards to this topic...
(i) Verify as many 'Satellite' observations* as possible & get an altitude via equation
(ii) Find an (alive) amateur astronomer who saw, with his own eyes, NEA's pre-1957
(ii) Find some reference to these things in the thousands of years of human literature
If these are done then great, you've solved it... and provided a well founded alternative theory to the Neutral observer.
Let me re-formulate, for clarity, my above statement once again (regarding the absolutely undisputed existence of Near-Earth Asteroids - ever since the dawn of times) : I don't think that there is ANY debate / controversy whatsoever among astronomers about the fact that countless NEA's have been observed (with the naked eye) LONG before 1957 - and documentably so - at least since the 17th century (although it seems that, back then, astronomers usually referred to 'asteroids' as 'comets').
I will now vividly encourage you to read this fine article "Comets Demystified, Asteroids Discovered" which neatly summarizes the gradual discovery - by direct visual observation - of untold numbers of asteroids (or 'moving stars').
Here are a few selected excerpts of that article - but I hope you will take the time to read it all :
See, I really wished to get this matter out of the way for good - as I find it quite stunning that so many people are apparently unaware of (or even debating) the very existence of asteroids - these 'moving stars' I observed with my naked eyes on a regular basis in the clear night skies of Norway as a kid (as did my father, well before 1957). To be sure, whenever I bump - these days - into discussions questioning the existence of man-made satellites, there will always be some NASA clown arguing that "hey, so what are these moving star-like objects we can see moving across the skies at night - IF NOT MAN-MADE SATELLITES?". Well, the simple answer is: they are so-called "near-earth asteroids" (many of them transiting across our skies closer than our own moon). And they have ALWAYS been there.Comets Demystified, Asteroids Discovered
An engraving shows Tycho Brahe, who proved that comets lie beyond Earth's atmosphere.
"The discovery of asteroids, celestial bodies that are closely related to comets, soon followed. Only forty-three years after the first confirmed return of a periodic comet in 1758, an astronomer sighted the largest asteroid in the solar system. At the time, scientists thought this object was a small planet. And for a while, as other large asteroids were discovered, these bodies were routinely called "minor planets." Eventually, though, it became clear that they represented an entirely new class of celestial bodies—hunks of rock and metal wandering through the dark gulfs of the solar system along with the comets."
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Astronomers continued to use direct visual observation to find asteroids until 1891. In that year, German astronomer Max Wolf introduced a new, much more effective method for the search—photography. After mounting a camera on his telescope, Wolf made the first photographic discovery of an asteroid—named Brucia—in December 1891. (He knew it was an asteroid and not a star because he left the camera's shutter open for several hours; the stationary stars appeared as sharp dots on the photographic plate, whereas the moving asteroids left long trails of light on the plate.) Using this technique, Wolf was able to find four asteroids in a single night (September 7, 1896), considered an incredible achievement at the time. During his career, he discovered a total of 232 asteroids. This record was soon broken by his assistant, Karl Reinmuth, who found 284 asteroids.
Thanks to photography, literally thousands of asteroids were discovered in the early years of the twentieth century. So many new asteroids came to light, in fact, that astronomers lacked the time and resources to track and study them all properly. One of the most successful of the asteroid and comet hunters of that era, American amateur astronomer Joel H. Metcalf, put it this way:
The rapid and continuous multiplication of discoveries, since the invention of the photographic method for their detection, has introduced an embarrassment of riches which makes it difficult to decide what to do with them.
Indeed, many astronomers became bored with finding asteroids and began to view them as useless cosmic garbage littering the heavens. In the 1930s, therefore, asteroid research came almost to a halt. It was not until about 1970, when the U.S. space program opened up fresh avenues for such research, that a new generation of astronomers showed renewed interest in asteroids.
http://www.scienceclarified.com/scitech ... vered.html
Now, you may ask: does NASA deny the existence of near-earth asteroids? No, they don't : all they're saying, today, is that there are "a bit fewer of them than previously thought"... Of course, you can always trust NASA's word, can't you?
NASA Space Telescope Finds Fewer Asteroids Near Earth - September 29, 2011
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/ ... 10929.html
full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3znclQ08J4Q