'If' man has walked on the moon why can't you see all the stuff left on the surface with a good telescope 2?
823026
Being so far away, telescopes don't have the resolution needed to see the equipment. It's a bit like trying to use Google Earth and figuring out what the make and model of each car is. We can see the area of the moon where they touched down, but the equipment is just too small.\n\nBeing so far away, the light reflected off the metal facets of the hardware will rarely be reflected at just the right angle to be seen. The moon orbits Earth at a 5 degree inclination. Plus, the landers aren't at the moon's equator, which complicates things even more. The equipment will need to be at the right place at the right time, and our telescopes will need to be looking in the right place at the right time, just for a chance flash of something. It's a lot of variables that almost never come together right.
181278
for the same reason you can't see the edge of the earth, the moon, or the sun
195178
we dont see moonlight, the astronauts didnt see earthlight. what we and the astronauts saw was actually sunlight reflecting off of each (moon and earth). the moon gives off no light and all the lights on the earth would not make a very bright light if you were staring at the planet from the moon's surface.
1006604
Something learned from the Apollo era is that we are great field geologists. A robot grabbing soil samples could possibily miss something very important just a few meters away.\n\nAnd all the science done by the rovers in two years could probably have been done by man in a matter of days.\n\n"Only Man can evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other men."
827240
Canterbury - 1178 AD   Depending on the size of the explosion, you wouldn't necessarily need a telescope to see an event on the moon.\n\nAlso - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1182939\n\nIn the above story, the guy used a telescope and a camera to photograph a possible explosion - which is still being debated.\nAn observed moon "explosion" is very plausible, yet so is the wine!  While sampling some wines - for science purposes ONLY! - I think I may have observed a few "moon explosions" myself............LOL!
965981
This question is asked very often, and sometimes it is not phrased correctly, just like: "Can you see the Great Wall of China from the shuttle or from the space station?". Of course you can see it from there! (Although personally I was not able to see it, as our inclination was not enough, or to put it in other words: our mission did not take us over that Wall.) In the special programme "Looking down on the Earth with Marilyn Monroe" I thoroughly explained that everything larger than 30 metres can be recognised with the naked eye from a near Earth orbit. And of course also the Great Wall. \n\nBut the well-known rumour is as follows: "Is the Great Wall of China the only man-made work (incl. cities etc.) that you can see from the Moon?" As (unfortunately) I cannot answer this question from my own personal experience, I asked two of my Apollo colleagues - Charles M. Duke (Apollo 16, 5th moonlanding, April 1972) and Eugene A. Cernan (Apollo 17, 6th moonlanding, December 1972) - to enlighten us with the answer. Their answer was as follows:\n\nCharles M. Duke (Apollo 16): "... I do not think that you can see anything created by mankind from the Moon. Nobody saw the Great Wall of China from the Moon. You cannot see any large cities or man-made objects from the Moon. It is already difficult enough to see the different continents from the Moon. ... It is a common misunderstanding that we were able to see the Great Wall of China from the Moon. I do not know how this came about."\n\nEugene A. Cernan (Apollo 17): "There are NO man-made objects that you could see from the distance of the Moon, neither with your naked eye nor with the monocular we had with us on the Apollo mission. ... Yes, you can see the Great Wall of China from 200-300 miles, from the Earth orbit of the shuttle, in space. I could also see the Dome Stadium in Houston on Gemini IX with my naked eye. But these things, including large cities, cannot be seen from the Moon neither during the day nor at night. ... You should realise that the Earth, which appears four times larger than the Moon , is covered in oceans and clouds. From the Moon, we see the Earth just as the Lord created it, we do NOT see any man-made objects." \n\n\nI think this is an answer to this probing question once and for all.
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.
469465
Nah, you can't see the Great Wall of China from the moon--after all, the great wall isn't any bigger than an interstate highway, and you can't see those.\n\nAstronauts who have been to the moon say that you can't see any man-made objects from there-- you can see clouds,oceans, continents, ice caps, etc.  See the source for some quotes.
288730
Why can't we see the flag on the moon?  \nA.    Lets assume that: \nThe height of the flag (a) pole in ft. = 6 \nThe average distance to the Moon (approx) in miles = 221,000 \nWhich means that the distance to the Moon (approx) in feet (b) = 1,166,880,000 \nB.    Given the above: \nThe tangent (t) of the above in radians [tan(a/b)] = 0.0000000051, in radians \nConverted to Degrees [180*(t/pi)] = 0.000000295 degrees \nThis means that a telescope would have to be able to resolve an angle of 2.95 x 10-07 degrees to see the flag left on the moon.\nC.    That means:\nSince one Arc Degree (1/360 of a circle) = 1.000000000 Deg. \nAnd one Arc Minute (1/60 of a degree) = 0.016666667 Deg. \nAnd one Arc Second (1/60 of an arc-minute) = 0.000277778 Deg. \nWe can calculate that:  \nThe Angle to be resolved is: 0.000000295 Deg. \nAnd the Angle to be resolved in Arc Seconds is: 0.001060596 \n\nSo, to see the flag, a telescope must be able to resolve an angle less than an 1/1000th of an arc second.\n\n"So how big of a telescope would that require?", you ask.\nThe Dawes limit calculates how close two objects can be and still be resolved by a telescope. \nThe formula is:  Resolution (in arc seconds) = 4.56/Diameter. \nSo, to determine the required diameter, the formula is:  D = 4.56/Resolution(arc seconds) \n\nDoing the math, that is 4.56/.001060596 arc seconds, to see the flag a telescope would require a mirror 4,299.47 inches wide! That is 358.29 Feet!\nA super-telescope THAT big would have to be in orbit, to eliminate the turbulence of the earth's atmosphere.
360378
Well... Let's see...\n\nWe know nothing is there, and we brought back 842 pounds of Moon rocks. Ain't that enough?\n\nBesides, why should we do it, if no other country is doing it?
795625
Yes, there is quite a bit of equipment on the moon that was left behind during the six moon landings.  This inclues the "moon car", the descent stages of the Lunar Modules, and numerous experiments.\n\n And, there are several crash sites where the Saturn IV-B boosters were crashed intentionally onto the moon in order to produce seismic vibrations for the seismometers left on the moon by the astronauts.\n\nThe problem is that none of the equipment is large enough to be seen by telescopes.  At that distance, even the Hubble Space Telescope cannot resolve objects less that three or four meters in size.  Nothing we've left behind is large enough.\n\nP.S.  I think "spacejohn77" was referring to the article linked below.
513987
What confuses you about the moon? Most planets have them. Ours is old, lifeless, has a high reflectivity, and rotates once for every revolution (so we always see the same side). Why are you confused?
784794
maybe you would want to measure the helium content on moon and compare it to earth.
1139401
Due to atmospheric interference, it would not be possible to see any mad made object left on the moon from a telescope on the surface of Earth.\nHowever, there is a very powerful, Earth orbiting, telescope which is free from atmospheric distortions…the Hubble space telescope.  However, even this telescope, as powerful as it is, could not possibly see the flag left on the moon.\n\nUsing a little math and common sense, it would not nearly be possible to see the flag on the moon with the Hubble space telescope.\n\nFirst, let’s get some basic facts straight.\nThe Diameter of the Hubble telescope is 2.4 meters and the distance from the Earth to the moon (on average) is about 3.84 E8 meters.\n\nPretty much the only thing limiting what Hubble can and cannot resolve is diffraction through a circular aperture (i.e. how light waves interact with each other when they get to Hubble's mirror.\nThe minimum angle which a circular aperture can resolve is given by the formula,\nTheta_min = 1.22 Lambda / D\nwhere Theta min is the minimum angle, Lambda is the wavelength of light we are using, and D is the diameter of the opening.\n\nIf we assume we are using light at 500 nm (roughly the middle of the visible spectrum) and we know that Hubble's diameter is 2.4 meters, we can find the minimum angle to be,\nTheta_min = 2.54 E-7 radians.\nThis is quite a small angle by Earthly standards, but will it compare to the angle to the flag on the moon?...we'll see.\n\nHere is where I have to make an assumption, but it is a very reasonable assumption and one that will assure us that out answer is correct. Watching the moon landing videos, one can see that the astronauts placed a moderately sized flag on a pole on the moon. Although I don’t know the exact dimensions of the flag, I can assure you, it was definitely no bigger than 10 ft. But for the sake of argument and to make the numbers easier, let’s assume it was 10 feet (~3 meters).\nIf the distance between the flag and Hubble is the same (about) as the distance from the Earth to the moon, then we can calculate the angle between the top of the flag and the bottom of the flag pole as seen by Hubble orbiting Earth. The angle comes out to be about, 7.81 E-9 radians, about 30 times SMALLER than the absolute minimum angle Hubble can resolve...and this is if we assume that the flag is 10 ft, which it obviously is smaller than that in reality.\n\nPlus, Hubble was specifically designed to look at VERY distant object. Although the moon is far away, it might as well be right next to us compared to the stars/galaxies/.. Hubble is supposed to be looking at. Therefore, I don’t know exactly how it will respond looking at such a close and bright object.\n\nOne this is sure through, you could not see the flag, even with one of the best telescopes ever built operating perfectly under ideal conditions using visible light.
217005
as it is not possible to post pics i would assume that u understand\n1.Since the Moon has only one light source, the Sun, the shadows must be in line. But in this cases, it looks as if there are multiple light sources in moon, which is not possible.\n \n2.The foreground of many images of the astronauts on the Moon are filled in with light, while the shadows remain absolutely black, again proving that there are multiple light sources. \n\n3.There are no stars in the background from pictures taken on the Moon. \n\n4.In some images, a huge light source can be seen reflected in the astronaut's visors. This has to be a very bright, nearby source. There  is no possibility of external light source in moon\n\n5.How could NASA take TV images of the LM ascending on Apollo 15, 16, and 17 if there was no one on the Lunar surface to man the camera? \n\n6.There can't be any pictures taken on the Moon because the film would melt in the 250° temperatures. Any  film exposed to 250° would indeed melt at that temperature\n\n7.The LM engine was very powerful. How come it did not leave a crater below the spacecraft? Why didn't it kick up any dust when it landed?\n\n8.The footprints left by the astronauts are proof that the Moon landings are fake. This one is also essentially a two pronged argument. First, the Fox show charged that the LM engine was so powerful that the upper layer of dust should have been blown away around the LM, so there should not be any footprints. Others have charged that the footprints should not be there since in the absence of water as a bonding agent, they should not maintain coherent shapes and sharp outlines\n\n9.There is no dust on LM footpads. -- According to Kaysing and Fox, this is the strongest evidence that the Moon landings are faked. They allege that with the swirling dust from LM descent engine, the foot pads should be covered with dust\n\n10.The pictures below show that flags are waving. And they never will. The flag was on the airless Moon, just as we all knew\n\nTHERE ARE MANY MORE ISSUES ON THIS, \n\nBUT \n\nTHOSE ARE TOO TECHNICAL FOR US. \n\n  \n\n…..NEIL ARMSTRONG WAS NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO LAND ON MOON\n\ncheck the refrences on these sites
335545
Because when it's closer to the horizon, we have other objects (trees, houses, or even mountains) to compare it to, and the moon (or sun) looks very large, taking up 2% of the horizon.\n\nWhen it's farther up in the sky, there's nothing around it, so it tend to disappear in all that empty space.  Even though it still takes up 2% of any given arc, there are wide open arcs to the right, to the left, to the top and to the bottom of the moon that are totally devoid of objects.  Relative to all that open sky, it doesn't look so big.
136889
Its an illusion.  Its because the moon is closer to objects to which you can compare it.