Can you see the part of the Apollo 11 lander that was left on the moon through a telescope?

Question

I know about all the conspiricy nutters out there, but as part of the lunar lander was left on the moon, can it be seen from Earth?

Answer 1

Hi Richie.

I got the Best Answer prize for a very similar question a few dyas ago on here that asked if you can see the American flag from Earth. The answer and the reason is exactly the same - so here it is again,

The Hubble Space telescope's maximum resolution is such that an entire Apollo landing site and exploration area are only 1/20th of a pixel. Hubble was designed with deep space astronomy in mind.

Even the new OWL telescope (see Link 1) would only resolve the entire site to 2 pixels and would therefore not be enough to see the flag.

If your question is to prove that man actually walked on the moon then you need look no further than the Laser Reflector Experiment which constantly laser measures the distance between earth and moon. If the astronauts had never made it to the moon, they would not have been able to deploy these reflectors. (see Link 2)

Source(s):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2116...

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/apollo11...


Please ignore the last bit - coz thankfully it looks like you are not one of those nutters !

Answer 2

It would have to be a telescope with a about a 75 meter diameter aperture to just resolve the lunar module, that is, to distinguish it as a separate blob from other nearby object blobs. To see it in any detail, the aperture would need to be perhaps 750 to 1000 meters or more. This is because diffraction at the telescope aperture limits angular resolution to approximately: alpha = 1.22 x lambda / Diameter (of aperture), where lambda is the wavelength of the viewing light.

This equation gives the angular separation of two objects, say the left and right side of the lander, that can "just be resolved" as two objects. There is some fudge-factor room here with digital image processing, but that is a generally accepted resolution when viewed through a telescope with the Mark I eyeball.

So, what does that mean? The lunar module is roughly 4 m wide and on average about 385,000 km from earth. It therefore subtends an angle (in radians) of 4 / 385,000,000, or roughly 1 x 10^(-8) radians. If we set that equal to alpha and solve for D at 600 nm wavelength, we get a diameter of roughly 73 meters, which I rounded up to 75 meters, a diameter somewhat larger than 200 feet. Pretty big mirror for an earthly telescope. I don't think any have been built that large yet.

So the answer to your question is "No."

With adaptive optics, and a coherent "guide beam" to scatter off aerosols in the earth atmosphere, it might be possible to synthesize this large aperture from two or more smaller aperture telescopes spaced 100 meters or so apart. Photon counting techniques would probably be required to yield an image of objects on the moon, because the amount of light collected would not be large, although the aperture would be.

But why bother, just to view some abandoned NASA hardware? When we send people back there to establish a permanent moon base, they can take all the pictures they want from moon orbit using cameras with much smaller apertures (since they will be a LOT closer). Or, if they land anywhere near the original exploration sites, they can take close-ups and maybe collect souvenirs.

Answer 3

Ok, I just looked at all the answers and we DO have a telescope that can see the lower part of the lunar modules (the descent modules) its the Hubble telescope.Why haven't we pointed
at the moon to look for the remnants of six successful lunar landings?The moon is very reflective,so looking at the moon with the Hubble telescope would be like trying to find a
speck of dust on a flashlight from across a room with a pair of binocculars.Besides the scientists that use the Hubble space telescope DON"T question whether we went to the moon or not.There are scientists that regularly use a reflective mirror left by apollo 11 to measure the distance between the earth and the moon.

Answer 4

Sometimes when the moon is in the right phase you may catch a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off the outer skin,but a full view is not realistically possible as commercial telescopes are simply not large enough to give the proper magnification and resolution needed.

Answer 5

No, we cannot get an optical telescope that would see through our atmosphere with that kind of resolution.
However, EVERY DAY various observatories are using the laser reflector, that was left on the moon to measure the distance between the earth and the moon.

Answer 6

There was a documentary on TV about that,they looked through a power full telescope at where the landing took place,and the report from NASA was that vehicles and other objects had been left behind,but of course when the investigators looked through the telescope at the location there was fook all there.

Answer 7

According to the moon registry yes it is possible. It is on the earth side of the moon. The telescopes of today would probably be able to pick it up.

Answer 8

No but there is a reflective mirror up there to bounce a laser off so we could measure the distance to the mirror very accurately.

Answer 9

Yes its standing next to Elvis's Car at the gas station.

Answer 10

there is no telescope powerful enough to see it from Earth,But if they sent a camra around the moon you might be able to see it