How is that Nasa can show us pictures of space 10 billion light years away but cant seem to show us a picture of the American Flag on the moon? I assuming the flag is still there right? Like it aint gonna go any where.
2007-07-30 06:42:19 · 12 answers · asked by Tyler R 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Check out what is in those pictures of 'space'. All the stars in those images are within our own galaxy, so less than 100,000 light years away. What you see beyond that are galaxies, and they are huge. Let's take a typical galaxy to be about 100,000 light years across. At 10 billion light years away a little trigonometry shows that these galaxies subtend an angle of about 2.06 seconds of arc (for comparison, the full Moon subtends about 1800 seconds of arc). That's about the same size as Neptune appears to us, and I can see Neptune from my garden in my little 4" Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope. So why is Neptune visible in amateur telescopes while these galaxies are not? Because the galaxies are unbelievably faint and require very long exposure times to produce images. The famous Hubble Deep Field image took DAYS to capture enough light to show up all those galaxies.
By contrast the flag is about 1.5m long, and is about 400,000km away. More trigonometry gives that flag an angular size of about 0.0008 seconds of arc. That's less than 1/2500 the apparent size of Neptune or a 10 billion light year distant galaxy, less than 1 2-millionth the size of the Moon, and far too small to be picked up by any telescope currently in existence.
2007-07-30 21:27:26 · answer #1 · answered by Jason T 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well, if the flag was the size of a couple of football fields, they could do it. But it isn't. From 240,000 miles away, the scopes we have today aren't able to resolve something as small as the lander, or the flag.
Question for you... if you don't believe the flag is on the moon, why would you trust a grainy, blurry picture from the same agency that conducted the landing in the first place?
2007-07-30 13:48:36 · answer #2 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The highest resolution that can be achieved with the best telescopes is an object about 100 meters across on the Moon. Those objects 10 billion lightyears away are thousands of lightyears across.
2007-07-30 14:20:23 · answer #3 · answered by cosmo 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
When you are seeing images of galaxies, nebulae, stars from several million light years away you are seeing them becasue they are extremely large. The flag is too small to see even with the resolution of the hubble space telescope
2007-07-30 13:48:48 · answer #4 · answered by Barbara H 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
yes the fact that we can see a galaxy (a couple thousand light years across) 10 billion light years away makes perfect sense as to why we can't see something not even two meters high on the moon.
if you stand outside of a city you can see its buildings, yet you can't see the protozoans and viruses crawling on your own skin, that must mean that they are not there right?
2007-07-30 15:09:19 · answer #5 · answered by Tim C 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The flag is still there, and (thanks to a bit of wire) still waving in the nonexistent breeze. But it is, on a cosmic scale, a small object -- too small to see with even a good-sized telescope. Stars are visible because they throw a lot of light and are quite large, but even nearby stars are too small to show a visible disc in a telescope.
2007-07-30 13:47:56 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
No one has a lens able to shoot something 20 feet wide at 250,000 miles and have any resolution. Be patient, there is a European Lunar satellite planned that will get photos in few years
2007-07-30 13:53:57 · answer #7 · answered by Gene 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's still there, the landing site is visible from earth, however, try to imagine you're looking at the flag from above, it's like looking at a piece of A4 paper, side on, from a couple of miles away.
2007-07-30 13:56:51 · answer #8 · answered by Efnissien 6 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Because it is getting images of objects that emit their own light and have enormous size.
You make about the thousandth fool I've had to inform. The telescope big enough to see your puny little 4 foot flag hasn't been made yet. And it's not likely to happen even in your nerdy lifetime. It would require a 200 ft lens weighing God-knows how much and costing out the wazoo.
Before you go off grousing and biatching about your stupid conspiracy theories and such, get a freakin' education, chump. Then ask intelligent questions.
2007-07-30 19:21:55 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 4⤋
Well, the flag that was put up by neil armstrong and group was burnt as soon as their shuttle took off.. as they digged it too near to the shuttle so the gases just burnt that down..! i dont know about the rest!
2007-07-30 14:13:53 · answer #10 · answered by Harsh M 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋