If we have satellites that can read a newspaper, could they also see the flag on the moon?

Answer 1

There would first actually have to be a flag on the moon.

Answer 2

One reason a satellite can't read a newspaper is the thick atmosphere. Just as telescopes on Earth can't resolve fine detail due to blurring by the air, so one looking down has the same problem.

The Hubble looks out into space, where there is no atmosphere to get in the way. I have never seen any pictures of the moon taken by Hubble, and one reason may be that the moon is just too bright. Hubble was designed for very faint, small objects.

Answer 3

I'm assuming that the satellite you're talking about is reading giant front-page headlines. I wasn't aware that satellites had gotten down to a resolution of less than a few inches.

So figure that a satellite can see a 3 inch object from an altitude of 1,000 miles. The moon is 300,000 miles away. That same satellite (if it exists) could see a 900 inch object on the surface of the moon. That's about 75 ft across.

So I think the answer is no. If we had satellites that could see 0.1 inch objects from space, then it could maybe just barely make out a 2 ft flag on the moon. I think we don't have such satellites. With that kind of resolution, the U.S. military wouldn't have to send in ground troops. They would just launch missiles at anything suspicious in Iraq.

Answer 4

Current satellite imaging technology only has a resolution of a few inches, not nearly small enough to read newspaper print. Even the Hubble does not have enough resolution to pick up the flag on the moon, or the lower sections of the lunar landers that remain at the landing sites.

Answer 5

We do NOT have satellites that can read a newspaper. A simple calculation that any amateur astronomer could do will tell you that even the Hubble Space Telescope could not read a newspaper on the ground. The size of the smallest detail that can be seen is determined by the diameter of the lens. Twice as big a lens can see things half the size. That is one of the reasons big telescopes are better than small ones. You can boost the magnification of any small telescope to thousands of power by choosing the right eyepiece, but the result will be too blurry to see any detail if the magnification is too much for the diameter of the telescope. Now, your eye is about 7 mm wide, when dilated. The Hubble Space Telescope has a main mirror 2400 mm wide, or about 342 times the size of your eye. So it could see detail 342 times better than your eye, or you could see something 1 mile away as well as Hubble could see something 324 miles away. The Hubble telescope orbits about 353 miles up, which is pretty close to our 342 number, so the Hubble could see a newspaper from orbit about as well as you could see one from a mile away. How far away can you read a newspaper? Less than a mile I bet! Your supposed spy satellite would need a lens 10 times bigger than the Hubble telescope just to see a newspaper as well as you can from 528 feet away. Can you read a newspaper from 528 feet? No? Ok, you need a lens 100 times as big as Hubble to see a newspaper as well as your eye can from 53 feet away. Can you read a paper 53 feet away? Maybe the headline. Maybe some of the lesser titles if your eyesight is good. Not the text of the stories probably. And for that you would need a lens in orbit that is 100 times as big as the Hubble Telescope. That would be a lens 240,000 mm wide, about 780 feet wide! Trust me, no spy satellite can read a newspaper on the ground.

Answer 6

Whether or not we have satellites that can read a newspaper, we are never going to admit whether we have satellites that can read a newspaper.

Whether or not they actually could see a flag on the moon (didnt the apollo astronauts leave one there?) you and I will never have it confirmed or denied... or we will, but we will have to kill someone if we tell them about it.

The best question to ask is "whats the question behind the question. A question behind your question is "how do spy satellite resolutions relate to distance and size of object being viewed.

In order to read a newspaper the resolution has to be a pixel. I dont know what newspaper type pixel sizes are, so lets say (for ease of math) that we are interested in resolving a 1mm pixel from space.

In order to evaluate the resolving power of the satellite we have to know its altitude. Things under 300,000 ft get hit by chunks of atmosphere, and can usually be easily seen. Lets approximate the NSA to be inefficient that they put their satellite at 300,000 ft, or 91km... lets say 100 km for ease of math. Lets say the viewing object is 100 km away and it needs to resolve a 1mm wide pixel.

The angle (w) is related to the distance (R) and the viewed object width (D) as follows:
w=D/r

In consistent units, the resolving power of our hypothetical satellite is
w=(0.001)/(100,000m)
or
w=10^-8 radians
or
0.00206264806 arc seconds
or about 2 milli arc seconds.

The moon orbits at a mean altitude of 384,000 km. Lets assume our flag is visible (though we have to determine its size), that it is perfectly aligned so the distance from the surface to the earth to the flag is 384,000km, and that the satellite is on the shortest line (neglecting curvature of spacetime) between the flag and the nearest point on the surface of the earth.

using our math again, the smallest resolvable part of the flag will be
D=w*r
or
D=(10^-8 rad)*(384000000m-100000m)
or
D=3.839 m

Note: the resolving power of the Hubble is about 0.1 arc-second or 1/50th the power of your theoretical spy satellite.

Note: there is a huge difference between being able to fit an entire newspaper into a single pixel and being able to resolve a single pixel of a newspaper. If your only seeing that there is a newspaper (D=0.5m) then your resolving power becomes 13.2 arc seconds or about 132 times worse than hubble.

Note: if you were using hubble to look at a newspaper the smallest dimension it could resolve would be about 0.048 m or about 2 inches... assuming hubble is at 100km. It really orbits at about 600km so it can only resolve a pixel that is 11.45 inches wide... so it trys to fit a large newspaper into 3 pixels.

Answer 7

Usually the satellites are much nearer to the Earth, when compared to the distance between the Earth and the Moon. so its not as easy as reading a newspaper on earth, in case of seeing the flag on moon. It would require more magnification and sophisticated technology. anyway, those days are not far !

Answer 8

The satellites that read newspapers are only a few hundred miles above the surface of Earth. The moon is 230,000 miles away.

Answer 9

They might, depending on how high up their orbit is. I saw an interview with an astronomer on one of the Discovery Channel shows about the conspiracy theorists who say the moon landing never happened. He said those people should come see him. Apparently, they use their telescope to track 3 lights that were left on the moon by the astronauts. They get information on the distance of the moon from the Earth by triangulating the coordinates.

Answer 10

I think that the Hubble should be able to see that flag from 1969 and probably footprints too. I suppose someone should request to re-orient the Hubble to verify that for the non-believers.

Answer 11

i don't see why not and to prove their is a flag on the moon they could always point Hubble to the moon and look for it