OK, The “Grunt heard round the world” is no more, apparently burning up over the Pacific. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the probe and what fragments made it through the atmosphere fell about 775 miles west of Wellington Island.
In looking at Google News, I found this was the highlighted story from the BBC. While it is factually correct in words, it has a visual lie, probably due to the correspondent and/or editors inability to understand that radar imaging does not see color. Note the “fiery” red image.
Now here is the fun part, not only is the false color radar image visually misleading (it is of the intact spacecraft, not the fiery re-entry), it is also a FIVE DAY OLD image. Observe, from the source:
BBC apparently couldn’t be bothered to check their own photo source.
And, per the BBC caption “The German TIRA (Tracking and Imaging Radar) facility caught this image of Phobos-Grunt” the image wasn’t “caught” (implied with the re-entry), it was a planned photo though careful tracking.
If the radar image looked like this, without the false color added….
…do you think the BBC (or the Daily Mail, see update below) would have used it with the re-entry story?
UPDATE: WUWT gets results, BBC has changed the image!
My error. They’ve changed the position of the radar image, moving it further down and substituting a new one in the original position. Thanks to reader JJ for noticing.
They did change the caption though to:
“The German Tira (Tracking and Imaging Radar) facility saw Phobos-Grunt during its last days”.
This implies they realized the original image and caption was misleading.
Plus, there are other material changes to the article. Note that the time stamp for “last updated” has not changed from the original story (13:31). Seems pointless to have a “last updated” time stamp if you don’t use it to advise readers of changes. – Anthony
UPDATE: Monday: 9AM PST The Daily Mail gets it even wronger than the BBC. It seems that my concern about reporters misinterpreting and using a “fiery” radar false color image with the re-entry story isn’t an exclusive misstep of the BBC. If readers see any other misuse/miscaption of the radar image, please point it out in comments. – Anthony
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Thanks for the explanation….I missed it too. Another testament to your careful work, Anthony…. ;-D
Yet another case of the media’s take on accuracy and truth: they are irrelevant to ‘news’.
Laziness as regards the facts. Evidence of intellectual decay and hog-trough arrogance, in an unassailable bastion of propaganda-generation. It’s all about what looks good. National broadcast systems served their purpose in simpler times, but with the advent of technology (read ), actual research has fallen by the wayside. The radar image is instantly recognizable as the intact craft for those who, not swallowing the company line, went elsewhere to find out the facts. Regarding those who presented this report, they are probably sitting at their desk, shrugging, as they know nobody will censure them for laziness.
don,t worry the abc in australia is just as bad
errata:
the above phrase “but with the advent of technology (read )” should be “but with the advent of technology (read ctrl-C, ctrl-V )”.
Photoshop. The first course of journalism students these days.
The British public paid approx.£3.3B in 2008 for the BBC.
Why does the public put up with this?
It is about time the licence fee was substantially cut!
I had just told my wife yesterday night not to bother looking for news about this at the BBC website. They lie about everithing, not just global warming. It’s in their blood.
Not to excuse the Beeb,
but this is a public who never cares
that not a single movie set in space
ever shows constellations or the Milky Way,
nothing but tiny paint splats.
Why would such info-slobs care what the BBC does?
Well, if you don’t know what is, what is where, or what is going on, just fake it.
“Here be dragons“
How about this report from Austrailia claiming that the probe was loaded with 11000 tonnes of toxic fuel, just a 3 orders of magnitude error.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/phobos-grunt-probe-to-crash-to-earth-within-hours/story-fn5fsgyc-1226244927093
Paul
Oops “Austrailia” clearly I am not as literate as I am numerate,
Paul
So not only is the orbiter not on fire in the photo, it’s not even crashing at that point!
Good catch, Anthony! That’s a pretty substantial photographic fib.
BBC News and science – load of rubbish – uninformed ‘correspondents’ thinking they know more than they really do – no doubt approved if by clueless bosses.
well a few now know this truth while many many more only know the BBC “truth”
To be fair to the BBC (not that I am a fan of them) that image has been on their Science site for quite a few days and was certainly up there before it fell to earth.
But nowhere does the BB article say the image was of the re-entry. And “catching” an image does not imply that, not to me, a Brit, at least.
Why so desparate to catch out the BBC? OK, no need to answer that.
Ten days ago the BBC made an even bigger goof when they reported that a USAF spaceplane (X-37B) may be spying on the Chinese space station (Tiangong 1)…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16423881
Had they done some basic checks on the orbital parameters (e.g. using freely available tools like STK), they would have seen that this was essentially impossible…
http://www.zarya.info/Gallimaufry/TG1-OTV2.php
…and the fact that X-37B was launched about six months before Tiangong 1 should have also raised alarm bells.
Although I may have missed it, I’m still waiting to read an official correction/retraction of this story.
You are talking rubbish, the BBC used that as a standard image when talking about the spacecraft, they made no claims to it being of its re-entry, in fact to quote the real caption from the BBC website:
“The German Tira (Tracking and Imaging Radar) facility saw Phobos-Grunt during its last days”
I think it is YOU who needs to check your facts before making wild allegations.
Meanwhile, over at the BBC’s print wing, The Guardian, the story is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/15/phobos-grunt-mars-probe-pacific
The headline is: ‘Phobos-Grunt Mars probe falls into Pacific Ocean’ The subheadline says condemningly: ‘Russian space agency had previously said that the stricken planetary rocket was most likely to fall into the Atlantic’.
I think that the Russians would still say that. It was most likely, and even after the event, it remains the outcoime that was the most probable.
The BBC doesn’t understand the point of this blog. They would say it’s standard practice and nothing unusual to see here. Note that there is no mention that the probe was on fire or that it was taken on its descent. So no foul play. If a reader made a connection between the photo and the title “falls over Pacific”, then that’s their problem.
That’s the BBC for ya.
Just how well understood is our atmosphere, when an orbiting object interacting with same, is given a re-entry window measured in days ?
I thought everything was settled !
Charlie says:
January 15, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Meanwhile, over at the BBC’s print wing, The Guardian, the story is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/15/phobos-grunt-mars-probe-pacific
The headline is: ‘Phobos-Grunt Mars probe falls into Pacific Ocean’ The subheadline says condemningly: ‘Russian space agency had previously said that the stricken planetary rocket was most likely to fall into the Atlantic’.
I think that the Russians would still say that. It was most likely, and even after the event, it remains the outcoime that was the most probable.
————–
More rubbish! That’s not condemning at all. The Russians HAD PREVIOUSLY said it would most likely fall in the Atlantic. It didn’t. So what?
Typical BBC nonsense. Of course, this sort of reporting ‘error’ isn’t just confined to space science, but rampant throughout its articles, many of which are unabashedly leftist politicized. Here’s another case of redundant data dressed up as ‘fact’ to serve their political agenda:
Scotland’s hospitals top European infections league
http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/4047-bbc-scotlands-new-year-part-1
Quite the willing partner. Hey, BBC – we’re watching you, watching us – watching you 😉
Not bad science, just ordinary sloppy journalism. Happens in every publication, no matter how truthful or false. It’s not the sort of thing that deserves attention in a science context.
BBC has serious problems with truth, which are an entirely different matter.