new article: "The Mystery of John Glenn’s Fireflies Returns"

New story on a very old story (I don't think there's any mystery any more but others disagree)

The Mystery of John Glenn’s Fireflies Returns
by Nancy Atkinson on January 5, 2011

What were the “fireflies” that John Glenn saw during the first orbital spaceflight for the US? Enjoy a new “you-were-there” look at the stories of early space exploration from the original NASA transcripts, but in a vastly improved format. A new website called Spacelog has put the transcripts in a searchable, linkable format. Spacelog is an open source venture making the transcripts more accessible to the public, and adding photos and timelines in with the text.

Currently the Apollo 13 mission and Mercury Friendship 7 mission are available with more coming in the future. A linking feature allows users to Tweet and link to particular parts of the transcripts. As an open source project, Spacelog is also looking for help.

Below is the part of the Friendship 7 transcript where John Glenn describes small, mysteriously illuminated particles surrounding his capsule:

www.universetoday.com...

Here are some of my inputs to the issue:

07/23/1993 - Oberg NASA briefing: Mitigation of Hazards of Spacecraft-Generated Debris
www.jamesoberg.com...

MSNBC // June 13, 2008 // Why NASA watches out for true UFOs
today.msnbc.msn.com...

reply to post by JimOberg

I remember a scene in "The Right Stuff" where he talked about this. You say no mystery but I have never seen an explaination of this. What was it determined to be?

Frost? I thought it was paint chips off the capsule. Do we know this for sure?