Why can we not see the Lunar Rover on the Moon with a powerful telescope? (asked with Arnold accent)?

Answer 1

Don't worry. The Chinese satellite will be up there soon enough to take aerial photo's of the lunar surface for taking over the Moon and claiming it for Red China. Soon we wil have to pay them to go there for expeditions. How do you say; "Fly me to the Moon" in Chinese? The lunar rover has been garage kept all of these years so unless there's a garage sale soon you'll have to just wait.

Answer 2

Telescopes won't be able to see ingredient smaller than a value on the subject of the wavelength of light and the diameter of the telescope reflect. it rather is a diffraction consequence due the the wave nature of light. A rule of thumb, noted as Dawe's shrink, says the smallest ingredient that could bee seen by using a reflect D inches in diameter is 4.fifty six/D arc seconds. case in point, the Hubble area Telescope has a ninety 4 inch reflect, so 4.fifty six/ninety 4 = approximately .05 arc seconds. (approximately 13 millionths of a level). A 2 foot rover 240,000 miles away is barely approximately .00033 arc seconds huge, so which you may desire a telescope a hundred and fifty circumstances as great because of the fact the Hubble to work out it! by using ways, there is not any working rover on the Moon. The old Soviet rover went ineffective some time past. the only working rovers are on Mars now.

Answer 3

Telescopes cannot see detail smaller than a value related to the wavelength of light and the diameter of the telescope mirror. It is a diffraction effect due the the wave nature of light. A rule of thumb, called Dawe's Limit, says the smallest detail that can bee seen by a mirror D inches in diameter is 4.56/D arc seconds. For example, the Hubble Space Telescope has a 94 inch mirror, so 4.56/94 = about .05 arc seconds. (about 13 millionths of a degree). A 2 foot rover 240,000 miles away is only about .00033 arc seconds wide, so you would need a telescope 150 times as large as the Hubble to see it!

By the way, there is no operating rover on the Moon. The old Soviet rover went dead long ago. The only operating rovers are on Mars now.

Answer 4

The lunar rover is about 2 meters across.

The distance to the moon is 384,000,000 meters.

Therefore, the angular size of the lunar rover seen from the Earth is:

arctan (2/384,000,000) = arctan (0.000000005) = 0.001 second of arc.

The most powerful optical telescopes on the surface of the Earth are limited by the atmosphere to resolutions of 0.15 seconds of arc, and therefore fail to see the rover by a factor of 150.

A telescope in orbit around the Earth would need to be nearly 200 meters in diameter to resolve the Lunar Rover. This is about 50 times bigger in diameter than the Hubble Space Telescope.

What you can see, with a moderate-sized telescope, are laser pulses from retroreflectors left on the Moon.

Answer 5

Unfortunately not even the most powerful telescopes ever made are able to see these objects. You would require a telescope around 200 meters in diameter to see it.

The largest telescope now is the Keck Telescope in Hawaii at 10meters in diameter. Even the Hubble Space telescope is only 2.4 meters in diameter. Resolving the lunar rover, which is 3.1 meters in length, would require a telescope 75 meters in diameter. So our backyard 6 inch and 8 inch telescopes are not even going to come close!

Answer 6

The really big telescopes can only see features that are a mile and a half or more in diameter.

Answer 7

Hi. You could. You would need optics capable of resolving to what ever size object you wished to detect. And a way to eliminate atmospheric distortion. It would be cheaper, I think, to go up and get closer to the Moon.

Answer 8

You have asked this qustion for the third time now.

Answer 9

BECAUSE ITS NOT THERE