Is it an urban myth that you can see the Great Wall of China from space?

Question

Most motorways are wider and there is no mention of seeing the M25 from space!

Answer 1

The Great Wall is a maximum 30 feet wide and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power (distance versus the width of the iris: a few millimetres for the human eye, metres for large telescopes) an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings some four thousand miles in diameter (such as the Australian land mass) would be visible to the unaided eye from the moon (average distance from earth 238,857 miles). But the Great Wall is of course not a disc but more like a thread, and a thread a foot long would not be visible from a hundred yards away, even though a human head is. Not surprisingly, no lunar astronaut has ever claimed he could see the Great Wall from the moon

Answer 2

The reason you're getting a lot of different answers here is
because 'Space' is a very relative term. Technichaly speaking, we're in space as we sit here now. We always are, we are as bound to it as we are to time.

Now, I realize what you mean is 'out there'. But that's subject to interpertation too. It could mean in orbit, or it could mean outside the atmosphere. While the atmosphere isn't very thick, it doesn't exactly have a very well defined edge, either. And 'orbit' can go a long way out.

So.. I guess I'd say that you can see the Great Wall from pretty high up. And you might not hear about motorways because that's not as dramatic sounding.

Answer 3

People look at the immense length of the Wall and say "wow, something that long would be visible from space" They never thought about the fact it is also only about 20 ft across, which is NOT visible from space. In effect, it's like having a long line across a page, but of zero thickness.

Answer 4

From the naked eye, no astronaut has reported seeing the Great Wall. However, there are man-made structures visible from space - Interstate-5 running through the California Sacramento Valley, buildings of Manhattan, the Aswan dam, and a few others.

Answer 5

No, it is a myth. It originally started in a 1938 book called "Second Book of Marvels" by Richard Halliburton in which he
wrote that the Great Wall could be seen from the MOON.

http://www.crystalinks.com/chinawall.html

Answer 6

I think a lot of people are getting confused here. Just because you can see something in a satellite photo does not mean you can see it from space with your own eyes. The Great Wall is too thin to be seen from hundreds of miles up, but of course you can see it with magnification or a program like Google Earth (zoomed in).

Answer 7

Hello Mucky... Cute Pic

Well, I admit, they don't post everything that they can see from space...That is a failing of the world press. But, yes, the Great Wall of China can be clearly seen from space because of its length. One of the Astronauts a while back was a former teacher and was curious to see if it could be seen from Space. As a result, he looked for it specifically, and found it.

I guess that if one of our future Astronauts was a former employee of D.O.T. (Department of Transportation) they might look to see if they could spot Interstate 95 from way up there, or something...Who knows?

Answer 8

Space is anywhere between 1/1000000000000000000000th of a nano meter to the edge of the known Universe. Obviously, it depends haw far above the Great Wall of China the photo or immage is taken and the focusing capability of the lens. If the lens can magnify up to 1000 times. Then,sure. Spy sattelites that are orbiting our planet above the Ozone layer (the Ozone layer is above the clouds )can take immages of peoples faces walking on land.

Answer 9

No. The Great Wall of China, among many other man-made things, can be seen from space.

Answer 10

Spy satellites can see very small things from space. It may or may not be an exaggeration to say that they can read your license plate, but they can certainly count people or cars or great walls.