this is not to contradict the structure of solar system.. just a curiosity to know that in over four decades of space exploration , has anyone actually seen a complete revolution.(by any means, remote satellites, or even people who have lived in the space station)
2007-10-08 01:43:36 · 4 answers · asked by Madhavan 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
you don't want much, doya?.... to do this we'd have to have a camera WAY up there, able to see from sun to Earth, 93 million miles... and to get the whole revolution thru a year, 186 million miles while it's on the 'other side' of the sun..... now where do ya think that camera could be based?... wow.... it would need to be at least as far out as Mars... but above the plane of the planets to get a good look........otherwise, we'd just look like Mars does to us....
2007-10-08 01:56:39 · answer #1 · answered by meanolmaw 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
the problem, of course, is scale.
if the sun were the size of a basketball, Jupiter would be about the diameter of a bottlecap, and the Earth would be the diameter of a pinhead.
and the distance between the basketball and the pinhead would be more than a football field apart.
And juuuust in case you were wondering, if you want to place Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the sun, grab another basketball and walk about 140 miles. If you wanted to map out the galaxy, the North American continent would work nicely
Starting to see the problem, yet? By the time you got to a suitable distance that you could see the orbit of the Earth, you wouldn't be able to see the Earth. the scale would be too large to see our pale blue dot.
2007-10-08 02:09:49 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Any spacraft that departed Earth/Lunar orbit could make such a video in principle, but it would take a lot of instrument time away from whatever planet they were supposed to be studying, for exactly zero new information. It would be a waste of valuable time and money.
What they have done is to remain in constant communication with Earth, which requires precise knowledge of its physical location. The spacecraft needs to know where to point the antenna, and that programming includes the details of Earth's orbit. That spacecraft do not lose comms with Earth is a direct observation of its revolution.
2007-10-08 02:01:06 · answer #3 · answered by ZikZak 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No. At least not from "outside" or "above the solar system". But of course we see it from Earth all the time, as the Sun moves from constellation to constellation in the Zodiac. Astrologers have been using this movement to tell fortunes for centuries before telescopes were invented.
2007-10-08 02:19:42 · answer #4 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋