If its too far to see, why can't you see light reflect off the shiny metal faces of all that hardware?
2006-11-09 06:42:54 · 14 answers · asked by Mick_Carter 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Being so far away, telescopes don't have the resolution needed to see the equipment. It's a bit like trying to use Google Earth and figuring out what the make and model of each car is. We can see the area of the moon where they touched down, but the equipment is just too small.
Being so far away, the light reflected off the metal facets of the hardware will rarely be reflected at just the right angle to be seen. The moon orbits Earth at a 5 degree inclination. Plus, the landers aren't at the moon's equator, which complicates things even more. The equipment will need to be at the right place at the right time, and our telescopes will need to be looking in the right place at the right time, just for a chance flash of something. It's a lot of variables that almost never come together right.
2006-11-09 07:41:17 · answer #1 · answered by furball17 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
In case you hadn't noticed the big shiny white thing in the night sky, the surface of the moon already reflects light pretty well, so the fact that some of the artefacts are shiny doesn't really help much in picking them out. The stuff you are looking for is a few metres across, and the moon is approximately 3,480,000 metres acoss. Do you really expect to be able to find any of it? Look at Google maps and zoom in on some random spot in France until building-sized objects are visible. Now, without using zoom, try and find the Eiffel tower.
2006-11-09 07:00:41 · answer #2 · answered by Graham I 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The concept that man landed on the moon is strange enough to me.I firmly believe that the July 22nd 1969 moon landing was conceived,directed and filmed from an elaborate story-board by a famous American film studio! With new film technology just starting and several films about space already under their belts,the American Government of the day didn't want to lose face to the Russians during the presumed 'Cold Wars'. By instructing a famous film studio to create the conditions of a fake moon landing over several days in various news bulletins,the world was fooled into believing America had won the space race! Had any spacecraft of the day actually gone to the moon,how did they get through the Van Allen belt? Anyway,didn't the UK newspaper The Star show a London double-decker routemaster bus in the Sea of Tranquility?! There isn't any stuff on the moon to reflect back to Earth - the Americans never landed there in the first place! A waving flag indeed! Only the Americans could have THAT as a continuity error! Ouch!
2006-11-09 07:01:08 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
Actually... they can.
When the astronauts were on the moon, the placed several reflective plates at specific locations. These places are used by NASA to determine the distance between the earth and the moon. The process uses a laser beam that is aimed at the plates. When the beam bounces back, the exact location and speed of the moon relative to the earth can be determined.
So for seeing the stuff on the moon... well... the space ships they used are about the size of a school bus. Imagine trying to see a school bus from 356,400km or 238,857 miles away. Remember.. the circumference of the earth is a mere 25,000 miles!
Hope this helps!
2006-11-09 06:51:30 · answer #4 · answered by wrkey 5 · 2⤊ 2⤋
You can! But not with a regular optical telescope. The stuff left on the moon included a mirror. NASA and others use that mirror to determine the distance from the Earth to the Moon by aiming a beam of light at it and measuring the time it takes to reflect back. With that datum, it's easy to calculate the distance to the moon because the speed of light is constant.
2006-11-09 06:52:15 · answer #5 · answered by luddite extraordinaire 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
no man has not been on the moon. the lunar buggy is not a small craft, with my eyes i can see good detail, with binoculars even better so with a telescope well do the sums.
it was a race usa vs russia of corse the big head americans had to be 1st with a hoax.
look over time at technology other beings have given it to us. we can recreate technology that we have but if never made it then we cant improve. eg the car engine yes they have got better but the basic design is still the same this is why i say it was a hoax!
2006-11-09 08:05:15 · answer #6 · answered by The Crow Tribe Awakkule 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
I wonder myself if they really did wal....never mind. I would think that if we have satellites with mounted PTZ cameras w/ lenses that can digitally identify a person or even read a newspaper heading, wouldn't those cameras be able to pan toward the moon and take pictures of a flag, left over Lem pedestal, moon rover, or even foot prints that are said to remain for years? Great question, I'd like to see the media come up with resent pictures for us all to see.
The Hubble telescope can see deep deep into space!!!!! We supposedly do have the technology.
2006-11-09 06:55:39 · answer #7 · answered by twostories 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
You can't see the stuff on the moon because our scopes are not that good. If you can build a telescope good enough to see the stuff on the moon, astronomers would be having a heyday.
2006-11-09 06:58:15 · answer #8 · answered by Roman Soldier 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
We don't yet possess a telescope with sufficient resolution to see an object a few feet across at a distance of over 220,000 miles.
2006-11-09 06:46:17 · answer #9 · answered by Snowlizard 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
You can, you just have to have a strong telescope and know where to look
2006-11-09 06:45:36 · answer #10 · answered by czekoskwigel 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋