Can you really see the Great Wall of China from outer space?
399477
Nope\n\nhttp://www.snopes.com/science/greatwal.htm
66065
I have heard many people saying the Internet.\n\nIn my opinion, it should be the Great Wall of China.
889756
Google Earth.  Outstanding site and you can also see local landmarks.  In some cases you can zoom in so close that you can see landmarks (Pyramids, great wall of china, Space Needle.)\n\nIt's a fun site to peruse.
423754
It's not in A city, it passes near Beijing.\n\nThe Great Wall of China (Simplified Chinese: 万里长城; Traditional Chinese: 萬里長城; Pinyin: Wànlĭ Chángchéng; literally "10,000 Li¹ long wall") is a Chinese fortification built from the end of the 14th century until the beginning of the 17th century, during the Ming Dynasty, in order to protect the Ming Empire from raids by Mongol, Turkic, and other nomadic tribes coming from areas in modern-day Mongolia and Manchuria. It was preceded by several walls built since the 3rd century BC, the most famous being the Great Wall built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, which was located much further north than the current Great Wall of China built during the Ming Dynasty, and little remains.\n\nThe Wall stretches over a formidable 6,352 km (3,948 miles), from Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Sea in the east, at the limit between China proper and Manchuria, to Lop Nur in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (refer to University of Washington: A. The Main Caravan Routes (b) The “Central Route” or “Middle Route.”).\n\n \nThe Great Wall in the winter, near BeijingContents [hide]\n1 History \n2 Condition \n3 Watchtowers and barracks \n4 Materials \n5 Recognition \n5.1 From outer space \n6 See also \n7 Further reading \n8 References \n9 External links \n10 Notes \n11 More photos \n \n\n\n\nHistory\nA defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times in Chinese history. There have been five major walls:\n\n208 BC (Qin Dynasty) \n1st century BC (Han Dynasty) \n7th century CE (Sui Dynasty) \n1138 - 1198 (Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period) \n1368 - 1640 (from Hongwu Emperor until Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty) \nThe first major wall was built during the reign of the First Emperor, the main emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty. This wall was not constructed as a single endeavor, but by joining several regional walls built by the Warring States. The walls that were linked together at this time consisted of rammed earth with watch towers built at regular intervals. It was located much further north than the current Great Wall with its eastern end at modern day North Korea. Very little of this first wall remains - photos reveal a low, long mound.\n\nThe government ordered people to work on the wall, and workers were under perpetual danger of being attacked by brigands. Because many people died while building the wall, it has obtained the gruesome title, "longest cemetery on Earth" or "the long graveyard." Possibly as many as one million workers died building the wall. [1]\n\nThe later long walls built by the Han, the Sui, and the Ten Kingdoms period were also built along the same design. They were made of rammed earth with multi-story watch towers built every few miles. These walls have also largely vanished into the surrounding landscape, eroded away by wind and rain.\n\nIn military terms, these walls were more frontier demarcations than defensive fortifications of worth. Certainly Chinese military strategy did not revolve around holding the wall.\n\nThe Great Wall seen today was built during the Ming Dynasty, starting around the year 1368 and lasting till around 1640. Arab Geographers have also linked Alexander the Great with the building of the Great wall from a passage of the Holy Qur'an. This new wall was built on a grand scale with longer lasting materials (solid stone used for the sides and the top of the Wall) than any wall built before. The primary purpose of the wall was to make it difficult for semi-nomadic people outside the wall (such as the Mongols under Altan Khan and the Oirats under Esen Taiji) to raid into China with their horses or return with stolen property.\n\nThe Ming Dynasty Great Wall starts on the eastern end at Shanhai Pass, near Qinhuangdao, in Hebei Province, next to Bohai Gulf. Spanning nine provinces and
885918
The claim that China's Great Wall is the only man-made object that can be seen from the moon with the naked eye is one of our more tenaciously incorrect "facts," a bit of erroneous speculation which was spawned decades before we had the means to demonstrate it true, and which continues to have currency despite having long since been proved false. Some less specific versions of the Great Wall claim maintain it is the only man-made object that can be seen from "space," but although the term "space" is rather non-specific, it is not difficult to show the Great Wall claim to be false for any reasonable definition of the term.
13214
No the resolution is not high enough but nasa is planning a satellite to orbit the moon that can take very close up pics and show where they are.
507641
go to nasa world wind and load it and you can see for yourself
900602
Well, it depends how good your eyesight is, but if you have perfect vision, yes it is very possible to see sunlight reflecting off a satellite or space station with the naked eye. It is not possible to see the light being generated within the space station, only the reflection of the sun from it. That's why the best time to look for satellites and space stations is just after sunset or just before sunrise, otherwise they are in the earth's shadow for the remainder of the night.
879967
if you have a good enough telescope - you can see some stuff.\nyou can also see the robotic tractor that was left on Mars. (though you need more than a standard telescope for that)\nIt has been done by many people
444149
(m)\n\nThe Great Wall of China, also known in China as the Great Wall of 10,000, is an ancient Chinese fortification built from the end of the 14th century until the beginning of the 17th century, during the Ming Dynasty, in order to protect China from raids by the Mongols and Turkic tribes. It was preceded by several walls built since the 3rd century BC against the raids of nomadic tribes coming from areas now in modern day Mongolia and Manchuria.The Wall stretches over a formidable 6,350 km (3,946 miles), from Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Gulf in the east, at the limit between China proper and Manchuria, to Lop Nur in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. \n\nThe first major wall was built during the reign of the First Emperor, the main emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty. This wall was not constructed as a single endeavor, but rather was created by the joining of several regional walls built by the Warring States. It was located much further north than the current Great Wall, and very little remains of it. A defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times in Chinese history. The Great Wall that can still be seen today was built during the Ming Dynasty, on a much larger scale and with longer lasting materials (solid stone used for the sides and the top of the Wall) than any wall that had been built before. The primary purpose of the wall was not to keep out people, who could scale the wall, but to insure that semi-nomadic people on the outside of the wall could not cross with their horses or return easily with stolen property.
1042536
I can't even see it on Google Earth without having to zoom in. I can't believe astronauts have such great vision they can zoom in and see something 20-30 feet wide from a quarter million miles away. Anyone that belives that will believe anything.
876714
No.  Even the Hubble Space Telescope cannot resolve objects as small as the Lunar Module or the Saturn IVB booster that were crashed on the the moon for seismic experiments.  The HST can resolve objects as small as 0.05 arcseconds.  To see the Lunar Module, it would have to resolve objects as small as 0.0005 arcseconds.  In other words, you'd need a telescope 100 times better than the HST and you'd need it to be in space.\n\nAnd just for the hoax lovers ...\n\n1) Twelve 12 American astronauts have walked on the moon.\n\nApollo 11: Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin\nApollo 12: Pete Conrad & Alan Bean\nApollo 13: << failed to land on the moon >>\nApollo 14: Alan Shepard & Edgar (Ed) Mitchell\nApollo 15: David Scott & James Irwin\nApollo 16: John Young & Charles Duke\nApollo 17: Eugene (Gene) Cernan & Harrison Schmidt\n\n\n2) Why haven't we been back?  \n\na) American astronauts visited the moon on six occasions.\n\nb) The "moon race" was an extension of the cold war. It was mostly about national prestige. We got there first and achieved our primary objective. There was some good science: surveys, measurements, sample collection. But it was mostly about being there first. Once we achieved our primary objective, there was no political will to go back. There still isn't.  Perhaps, if we discover He3 or something else valuable, there will be.\n\nc) I used to travel to Crested Butte, Colorado every year to ski. Because I don't go anymore, does it mean that I never went?\n\n\n3) What about the Van Allen radiation belts?  Wouldn't it have killed the astronauts?\n\nThe existence of the Van Allen radiation belts postulated in the 1940s by Nicholas Christofilos.  Their existence was confirmed in *1958* by the Explorer I satellite launched by the USA. \n\nThe radiation in the Van Allen radiation belts is not particularly strong.  You would have to hang out there for a week or so in order to get radiation sickness.  And, because the radiation is not particularly strong, a few millimeters of metal is all that is required for protection.  "An object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per *year*."\n\n"In practice, Apollo astronauts who travelled to the moon spent very little time in the belts and received a harmless dose. [6]. Nevertheless NASA deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimise the radiation."  When the astronauts returned to Earth, their dosimeters showed that they had received about as much radiation as a couple of medical X-rays.\n\n\n4) The U.S. government scammed everyone?  \n\nIn 1972, there was a politically motivated burglary of a hotel room in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. There were only about six or eight people who knew about it. However, those people, including Richard M. Nixon, the President of the United States, failed to keep that burglary a secret. It exploded into a scandal that drove the President and a number of others from office.\n\nIf six or eight people couldn't keep a hotel room burglary a secret, then how could literally thousands of people could have kept their mouths shut about six faked moon landings? Not just one moon landing, but six of them!\n\n\n5) What about the USSR?  \n\nEven if NASA and other government agencies could have faked the six moon landings well enough to fool the general public, they could NOT have fooled the space agency or military intelligence types in the USSR. The Soviets were just dying to beat us. If the landings were faked, the Soviets would have re-engineered their N-1 booster and landed on the moon just to prove what liars Americans are. Why didn't they? Because the landings were real and the Soviets knew it.\n\n\n6) Why does the flag shake?  Where are the stars?  Who took the video of Neil Armstrong? \n\nTake a look at the first two websites listed below.  They deal wel
146497
you could see the edge of the universe.  that was one of the things the Hubble space telescope was designed to do. \n\ntaking the age of the universe as around 14 billion yrs old you could see that far(in light years) into space.
116040
Im afraid my eyes arent good enuf to see that far... Its an unaswerable question
1023489
No.  But we see only the side that faces earth.\n\nHere's a good diagram that explains it better than I can...\n\n\nhttp://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/the_universe/uts/moon2.html
1008088
Extremely doubtful.  The best resolution for US spy satellites has been guessed to be about 2 inches, which is much larger than the numbers on a license plate.  Even if it could resolve that small, the viewing angle would make it difficult to see the plate.\n\nAnyway, spy satellites circle the Earth at altitudes of about 150-200 miles, they aren't in geostationary orbit, which is around 22,000 miles.  At that distance, they'd be lucky to distinguish large buildings.\n\nEdit: A Guy, the GPS satellites are not in geostationary orbit.  They orbit at around 12,000 miles, which is about half geostationary distance.  The orbits are designed such that there are almost always 4 satellites in view from any point on the surface, since you need 4 for complete 3-D positioning.\n\nGeostationary orbit is used mostly for communications satellites, and some large-area weather overview satellites.  We do have some military satellites up there that watch for missile launches and any other large heat events, because they can be seen from that distance.  At that height, they can cover a good chunk of a hemisphere.\n\nHaysoos, stop being so paranoid.  They can't read your paper.
255650
Yes.  Or at least it can by using deep level optical spectroscopy (DLOS).  See the reference below: