Hubble Space Telescope spotting Neil Armstrong's lunar foot prints?

Question

Is the Hubble Space Telescope able to zoom into the moon's surface and photograph the footprints left by Neil Armstrong of Apollo 11? Since there is no atmosphere, wind, rain or erosion on the moon the footprints should be undisturbed.

Has the Hubble ever photographed the launch platforms of the Lunar Excursion Modules, US Flags, Lunar Rover of Apollo 15 or other traces left by the astronauts? Are any photos available? Am I wrong to assume this is possible since the Hubble is able to clearly pinpoint objects much farther than the moon?

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Answer 1

You are correct in assuming that the footprints and other objects would still be there and visible (although there may be some dust on them now), but there's no telescope made by man -- Earth-bound or in orbit -- that can see them.

The Hubble Space Telescope has an angular resolution of 0.01 arc-second -- which is what would be recorded in one pixel of the CCD cameras used to capture the Hubble photos. At the distance from the HST to the moon, that would be a circle with a radius of about 50 feet.

Since the normal human foot is only about 12 inches long, and even in the moon suit would be no more than 24 inches, there is no way that HST could resolve a footprint. It can't even resolve the largest object we left behind -- the base of the Lunar Excursion Module (which is only about 20 feet in diameter).

The reason the HST can make such spectacular photos of objects in deep space is because they are so much bigger than a human footprint.

Answer 2

According to NASA's website, the Hubble couldn't focus on either the Earth or the moon, because they are too close, and the speed differences between the Hubble in Earth Orbit and the moon is so great, all you would get is a blur.

The Mars Recon Orbiter was able to spot the Mars rovers (3 meter sized) a few weeks ago, but this was a craft designed to function from a close martian orbit.

Answer 3

The resolution of Hubble is .05 arcseconds, matching that of the best ground-based telescopes. The lunar module is 30 feet wide including the legs, which at a distance of 235,000 miles subtends an arc of .005 arcseconds, at least 10 times too small to be seen by Hubble.

Answer 4

Yes, you are but not for the reason you might think. The HST has a very long focal length with a large aperture. This gives it great magnification but makes it nearly imposable to see objects as close as the moon. In order to do so, the aperture would have to be "stepped down" so far that the telescope would be severely hobbled and it's fantastic resolution would go out the window. (so to speak) :}