Can the hubble space telescope show everyone on Earth the US Flag on the moon?
JJ DonJuan asked:
People and conspiracy theorists believe the moon walk was a hoax made by the governement. But can our faithful Hubble telescope prove once and for all the evidence that we left behind on that incredible time in history? Our American Flag.
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People and conspiracy theorists believe the moon walk was a hoax made by the governement. But can our faithful Hubble telescope prove once and for all the evidence that we left behind on that incredible time in history? Our American Flag.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:49 am
No. The moon is too bright to point Hubble at it. NASA is VERY careful to keep Hubble always pointed away from the Earth and the moon, because the bright light would overload the CCD chips in the cameras.
There are six flags on the moon. The one at the Apollo 1 landing site was blown down when the Lunar Module ascent stage took off.
July 25th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
The flags left on the Moon have since deteriorated to the point where they probably no longer exist. They would have been exposed to sever Solar radiation and mind-boggling temperature changes. The poles they hung from are probably still there, but the fabric has almost certainly been gone for a while.
July 27th, 2009 at 1:54 am
The telescope does not work like a pair of binoculars, it works by detecting light from celestial bodies like stars, planets, galaxies, etc.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
It wouldn’t make a difference. These people are not entirely rational, and would simply claim that the hubble images themselves were faked and part of the conspiracy. They are no different to creationists, holocaust deniers or other mentalists who rigidly stick to their mindset and refuse to accept any evidence that counters their beliefs.
July 30th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
No. The Hubble doesn’t have adequate resolution to show an object as small as the flag at the distance of the Moon.
July 31st, 2009 at 9:42 pm
The resolution of the Hubble is not great enough to see the flag on the moon but it is still there and virtually unchanged.
There are some satellites orbiting the moon right now or soon that may be able to see it.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Geoff G is correct. In optics, there is a limit to how much detail a telescope can make out, and that limit depends on the DIAMETER of the telescope, not on its magnification power. This is called the “Dawes limit,” and it has to do with the wave nature of light. If you do the calculation (found on many websites), you find that in order for a telescope to see something as small as a Lunar Module at a distance of 240,000 miles, the telescope would have to be about 300 feet in diameter. (The Hubble’s diameter is only about 7.5 feet.) So, because of the way light and optics work, there is no possible way a (small) telescope near the earth could ever image the Lunar Modules.
On the other hand, if you move the telescope very close to the moon, it’s a whole different story. Just within the past few days, a satellite orbiting the moon has taken photos of the Apollo landing sites and the Lunar Modules there. See this link: (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html )
August 7th, 2009 at 1:22 am
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.