Why can't NASA direct the Hubble telescope to the moon to show us the moon landings?

Question

Why can't NASA point the Hubble to the moon and show the world a flag planted on the moon surface, to dispel the rumors that the moon landings were fake? If Hubble, as NASA claims can see galaxies billions of lightyears away, the moon is so near we can in fact see it with our naked eyes. Hmmnn!!!

Answer 1

I strongly believe that we have not landed on the moon until someone proves the oposite.

Answer 2

The Hubble is never pointed at the Moon because it would fry the cameras. Remember, it can see things up to 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 times dimmer than the Moon (44 magnitudes). No kidding.


Next, the things people left on the Moon are so tiny compared to their distance (<=0.01 arc-sec) that they're next to impossible to see. Remember, the Moon is a PLANET. It's so big that if it were going around the Sun rather than Earth it'd be a planet. Do you ever look at a globe and think, I can see tool sheds and people!?

The Hubble can only see such faraway galaxies because they have the brightness of billions upon billions of billions of stars! That's at least a sextillion times brighter than the moon.




Despite these limitations, I think I once saw in Sky & Telescope magazine the only man-made object on Moon visible from Earth.

They used a huge telescope, and probably an extremely short exposure, and they had to know exactly where it was to even find the dang thing. But it showed one of the Apollo landers.
It looks like a tiny black speck of sand that becomes a fuzzy gray blob in the magnified inset. That's it, that's all you can see. That's not even the lander, but it's long shadow in the low sun.

It's so borderline in fact that the other 5 Apollo landers are impossible to be seen.

The exposure had to be really short (measured in microseconds) or otherwise the picture would be blurry and even blind the camera.


Lastly, I've seen the Flat Earth Society website, even if they *could* take really nice pictures that show more than a dot then all the paranoid hard-core conspiracists will immediately cry Fake and it would do nothing to convince such deludeds.
You have to be kindof kooky already to believe |everything's| a conspiracy.

Answer 3

The Hubble cannot see anything that small on the Moon. But a new satellite now orbiting the Moon has seen the LM decent stages on the surface. Remember, the LM was a 2 stage rocket. The large first stage with the legs was left behind when the smaller second stage took off with the astronauts on board. These decent stages are much larger than a flag and are visible in the pictures taken by the new satellite. See the source.

Answer 4

The many answers below are very excellent. Just a point: Suppose Hubble published a picture showing a tiny speck that was designated as the landing pad of Apollo 11. Wouldn't the same people who claim that the moon landing was a hoax just say that the government faked the Hubble photograph?

Answer 5

NASA has no interest, or need, to disprove the ranting of the no moon landing lunatic fringe. Besides that, observing time on for the Hubble telescope was extremely valuable... was because the primary camera went dead a few weeks ago and has to wait for the space shuttle repair mission to be used again. Finally, NASA doesn't control observing time on Hubble.

Answer 6

There are two reasons really... First the moon is so bright it would damage the equipment on Hubble. It was designed to look at things that are faint and far away, and the amount of light the moon gives off is far more than Hubble was designed to capture.

Secondly, in order to see objects as small as the flag or landers on the moon, you'd need a telescope over a kilometer wide in aperture to see it. Hubble is not big enough to see things that small on the moon.

Answer 7

Because the resolution of the telescope is not good enough to see objects that small on the Moon. It was not designed to be. In any case, we don't need conformation from the Hubble telescope, all you have to do is fire a laser at the Moon to hit one of the reflectors left there by the Apollo crews and record the reflection. If the laser reflectors were not there, you couldn't do it. This experiment, by the way, can be done by anyone, anywhere. Don't you think if the reflectors were not there someone would have mentioned it by now?

Answer 8

I really would love that,But there are two problems 1. Since the Moon is so bright it would damage the space telescope.2. The Hubble is too close to the Moon

Answer 9

The Hubble does not have the resolution to see anything that small. You're talking about a site maybe 30 feet across that's 250,000 miles away. That's like you trying to see a grain of sand 10 miles away with your naked eyes.

Answer 10

It is called "Resolution", the ability to resolve two items as separate items when seen in a telescope. We can see the moon, we can see the spots where we have landed. But what we have left are too small to resolve into an image.

Answer 11

There's no reason NASA can't do that. but will you give one good reason why they should waste valuable time and money indulging the delusions of a few conspiracy nuts? Especially when anyone that far out would probably just decide the images were faked? You aren't dealing with rational people, remember.