The point source NASA will not explain — CLEARVIEW-1's first deep-field image raises the question again

An unidentified point source in FARVIEW-1's first solar orbit image sits in the direction of the anomalous body that NASA has declined to name three times. Orbital Mechanics Quarterly has submitted a data access request.

Kerbin — By Halden Pryce & Corinne Alder · Joint reporting

CLEARVIEW-1 first solar orbit deep-field acquisition image — anomalous point source visible upper-right

CLEARVIEW-1 / FARVIEW-1 — Solar orbit acquisition image. The point source at upper-right has not been identified by NASA. OMQ has submitted a data access request for unprocessed sensor data.

We are not saying what the point source is. We are saying that NASA has not said what it is either, and that this is the second time they have declined to answer a question about that region of the sky.

FARVIEW-1's first solar orbit deep-field image is, by any technical measure, an exceptional result for a first-generation deep-space instrument. It is also the third time NASA has declined to explain something in the direction of the anomalous solar body that the program's own relay geometry implied existed.

The point source appears at approximately 23 degrees above the solar equatorial plane in CLEARVIEW-1's first wide-field acquisition image, transmitted via SOLARCOM shortly after solar orbit insertion. It is not a known catalogued object at that position. It is in the same right ascension consistent with the direction of the body first noted during SOLARCOM program development — the same direction Administrator Clane declined to discuss when asked directly after SOLARCOM 2 became operational.

That was the second evasion. The first was the SOLARCOM infrastructure framing itself — a solar relay network with no stated communications target, described only as 'infrastructure,' built before the program had any deep-space assets to relay. FARVIEW-1 is now the first such asset. It communicates through SOLARCOM. At least two of its planned observation targets are in the direction of the point source.

Orbital Mechanics Quarterly has submitted a formal data access request to NASA for unprocessed CLEARVIEW-1 sensor data from the image. The Herald has submitted two requests for comment on the point source. We are publishing what we can verify: it is there, NASA has not explained it, and the program's most capable deep-space instrument is currently pointing at it.

Separately: Katdorf Kerman, the MSC scientist currently aboard LSI 1, has been using the station's POTHOLE telescope module to observe specific coordinates in deep space during night passes. OMQ published a letter noting her pointing pattern. She posted to Crewgram eleven days ago: 'day 49. I have seen something.' She has not posted since.