Can any remnants(flag, rover etc.) of our visits to the Moon be seen with a powerful telescope??

Answer 1

To answer your question: No telescope on Earth--currently--is that powerful and neither is the Hubble in space.

To answer the next question: A telescope of the appropriate size would have to be about forty meters (about 44 yards) in diameter to do that. The current largest telescopes are around 10 meters. So we are way too short of where we need to be to photograph automobile-sized objects on the moon.

There is no conspiracy here. It is all optics that are well known to every optometrist. The key word is "resolution."

The other day I took out my telescope, a big expensive one, and was experimenting with resolution. I taped a small back-of-the-magazine ad in 8 point type to a street sign at distance of 500 feet . I could read it fine (although it was mirror-reversed). This was in daytime.

My eyeballs could barely see that I had taped something on the sign, let alone read it.

When I hold the magazine in front of me, I can read that small ad fine without a telescope. But that ad is a lot BIGGER. It is RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE, and I can *resolve* those details.

Why is this. The ability to RESOLVE SMALL DETAIL is directly related to the size of the instrument collecting the light: the size of the holes in your eyes, or the size of the mirror in my telescope. This is calculated using very basic mathematics and optical principles that have been developed over the past 400 years.

Now, people like to say, well Hubble can see real far so how come it can't see the moon. Hubble has excellent resolution but "seeing far" is not about resolution as much as it is about "seeing very dim."

Old or new cameras will make the point. With a camera tripod you can, in a dim room, take a long exposure picture of your living room couch that will show as much detail as a short flash picture. You just have to make sure that the camera is held steady. So with the right instrument you can "see very dim details" even though to your eyes the room is getting pretty dark.

But the RESOLUTION will be the same. The flash picture of the couch and the picture without the flash (with a long exposure on a tripod) will both show the same number of threads in the fabric, or the floral design details, etc. Seeing dim is one thing, and resolving detail is a different thing.

Hubble is a camera. It works very well with long exposure times, and the famous "edge of the universe" pictures require up to 60 hours or more of exposure time. Instead of a tripod, the camera is held steady by gyroscopes.

But photographing the moon rover isn't about exposure time: there's lots of light on the moon. This question is about resolution. It is like that small ad I taped on a sign in daytime that I can't read with my naked eye, or even with binoculars, but which I can read fine in my large personal telescope. This is a question of RESOLUTION, and to resolve details at a distance, bigger is better.

The relationship between the size of an object you want to see, how far away it is, and how big of a telescope you need to see it, is very well understood in optics. With a big enough telescope you can see the objects on the moon. But not today's telescopes.

Today's instruments are the biggest in history, but until they get to that 40 meter point they will not have the resolution to see the rover. They will also need adaptive optics to correct for the atmosphere's corruption of the image, but we don't need to get into that. Any billion dollar telescope will have adaptive optics, and a forty meter telescope will fall in that price range. Incidentally a forty meter telescope is NOT four times bigger than a 10 meter telescope. It is SIXTEEN TIMES bigger and a much more difficult engineering problem.

However, a forty meter telescope will be so exquisitely sensitive it might damage equipment to point it at the moon, so the people who run the observatory may nix that project, which will fuel the flames of conspiracy theories!

A forty meter telescope, if I may say so, would be one of the most exquisite engineering feats in history. The optical theory about what such a telescope can do is precise but the actual construction and operation of a structure that large, while keeping it accurate to within less than a wavelength of light, is an immense problem. I hope I live to see it, and I hope folks here will follow plans for VLTs (Very Large Telescopes, or the OWL, Overwhelmingly Large Telescope). I don't know if we'll get pictures of the rover on the moon, but it will be a great day for the sciences.

Hope that helps.

GN

Answer 2

It is not a hoax - if you doubt it, try this.

Main article: Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations

Some conspiracy theorists still insist that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax. These accusations flourish in part because predictions by enthusiasts that Moon landings would become commonplace have not yet come to pass. Such claims can be empirically discredited by three retroreflector arrays left on the Moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15. Today anyone on Earth with an appropriate laser and telescope system may bounce laser beams off of these devices, verifying deployment of the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment at historically documented Apollo moon landing sites.

Not enough? Here is more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings

Answer 3

The Hubble telescope might want to work out a football field on the Moon, only slightly, yet no longer a guy. yet Hubble isn't the biggest telescope contained in the international, that's in ordinary words the biggest one in orbit. There are larger ones on the floor that would want to work out smaller issues, like perchance a tennis courtroom, yet nevertheless no longer a guy, yet fairly they can't because of the blurring consequences of the Earth's environment. those blurring consequences are an similar ones that make the celebrities twinkle. yet no matter if those widespread telescopes were above the ambience like Hubble is, they are nevertheless too small to work out someone on the Moon. Or a flag.

Answer 4

With current technology - No.

You have to realize, you are wanting to see a car, or even the smaller flag, from the earth.

Currently, we have satellites in orbit around the earth that give us great pictures of the earth's surface. Even if those satellites are in a LEO, (Low Earth Orbit), they would be at a distance of about 400-500 miles above the earth.

The moon is 240,000 miles from the earth. There is just no way, with current technology, to get a clear picture of the moon's surface.

Who knows, maybe it wont be much longer till we can actually prove that we landed on the moon. We could put a satellite in orbit around the moon and take pictures of the surface...but it would be a TON of money just to prove we landed there, because there wouldnt be much else to use the satellite for.

Answer 5

There are those corner-cube reflectors (retroreflectors) on the Moon which were placed by the delicate hands of man, not crunched down by an unmanned probe or anything.

And large telescopes are NOT trained on the Moon. It's too bright, and would cause heat in the lens arrays.

Conspiracy theorists are bunkum. They don't make their job easier by claiming some wild story and THEN claiming a big government cover-up. It just gives them TWO whoppers to provide proof for instead of one.

Answer 6

No. Even with the Hubble scope, the lunar module is way too small to be seen at that distance. Remember that the Moon is 238,000 miles away and the Hubble is only a couple hundred miles up.

Answer 7

Ever find it odd that Hubble can see galaxies lightyears away, get pictures of them in stunning clarity, yet it's claimed the flag and rover and lander are too small to find?

Ever wonder how it is that this day in history, we can look back to the gigantic clunky technology of the 1960's and laugh, yet we're supposed to believe that somehow these people launched themselves through a radioactive belt capable of killing a man in a flimsy lander and space suits, then got out and walked around on the surface of the moon?

If you take a look into the theories on this, it makes a lot of sense... I don't think anyone in any time has ever set a foot on the moon.

Answer 8

Look you stupid **ttholes, does anyone realize how much LARGER a freaking GALAXY is than that little flag??

Is it so hard to use the damn Dawes Limit formula?

Learn something about astronomy before you start regurgitating conspiracy nonsense you just heard from somewhere else.
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Answer 9

don't think so,even with the use of the largest telescope.

Answer 10

Actualy you dont need a powerfull telescope to see them. i once saw them with binoculers. try a less powerful telescope. that will do the trick.