You can see the American flag on the Moon?
2006-12-05 00:58:48 · 12 answers · asked by Portia 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
I don't know Portia. I suppose it is possible but I wouldn't spend my money trying to prove it. Sounds like an urban legend to me, but I have been wrong before.
2006-12-05 01:01:08 · answer #1 · answered by Awesome Bill 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
No.
The best telescope built by man is the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Floating in orbit, it has no interference from the atmosphere, which is why it has the best resolution and is the most sensitive telescope available, even though it is significantly smaller than many earth-bound scopes.
HST has an angular resolution of about 0.01 arc-seconds -- that's the smallest object that occupies one pixel on the CCD camera used to collect the images. At the distance to the moon, that 0.01 arc-seconds becomes a spot about 50 feet in diameter.
The largest piece of equipment/debris we left behind on the Moon is the base of the Lunar Excursion Module, which was about 20 feet in diameter -- that means it doesn't even fill up one pixel. So we can't see the LEM no matter how we try.
The Flags left on the Moon were much, MUCH smaller than the LEM, so there's no way we can see them, either. And certainly not with even the best commercially available telescopes if the HST can't pick 'em out.
2006-12-05 12:58:59 · answer #2 · answered by Dave_Stark 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Hubble telescope can see things on the moon as small as 280 feet across - the flag's about 100 times too small.
2006-12-05 09:20:43 · answer #3 · answered by Iridflare 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
No. Even the hubble (which is a really, REALLY good telescope) can't resolve the american flag on the moon.
2006-12-05 09:11:40 · answer #4 · answered by words_smith_4u 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
No. Unless you want to spend a couple of million dollars. You could, however, probably see the retro prisms that were left there if you shined the sunlight at the moon with a mirror. There were prisms left there that NASA and the JPL use for measuring the distance from the Earth to the moon. They reflect light back to it's source, so they can point a laser at the prisms and compute the distance.
2006-12-05 09:23:07 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
In theory, you can get as much detail with a telescope as you can afford. If you bought an observatory, I bet you could see the flag. Anything less, probably not.
I bought an $850.00 Kowa 80mm spotting scope and trained it on the full moon and was absolutely amazed at the detail of craters and mountains. Didn't see a flag though. My bet is no: Short of something REALLY expensive, you won't be able to see the US flag. HTH, HB
2006-12-05 09:07:57 · answer #6 · answered by Hunter B 2 · 0⤊ 3⤋
2nd question of that faq
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/faq/index.cfm?Category=Moon
so if the nasa don't know it the flags are still on the moon I don't think you can do it from the earth
2006-12-05 09:08:01 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
No. The landings were on the other side of the moon
2006-12-05 09:07:00 · answer #8 · answered by Alex 4 · 0⤊ 4⤋
i don't even believe Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.... i heard it was a lie from the government...
2006-12-05 13:04:05 · answer #9 · answered by hazel 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
America never went to the moon? how can u see its flag?....:-)
2006-12-05 09:18:13 · answer #10 · answered by ashwin_hariharan 3 · 0⤊ 5⤋