Comments on: Space tweeting

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:24:28 +0000

Yeah, a lot of man-made objects are visible from orbit if you’re allowing optics, down to surprisingly small sizes for the really advanced satellites. The Great Wall is very long but not wide enough to see unaided, unless you happen to be a falcon.

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:18:26 +0000

From the ground you can see Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy.

I can’t, but I’m told it’s there.

By: terry12

terry12 — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:33:04 +0000

Looks like the pyramids have blocked wind erosion coming from the direction of the town, no?

By: FreeSpeaker

FreeSpeaker — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:55:20 +0000

@44 I am sooooo disappointed. Great beach. My son’s like the bathing suit optional part.

By: TojoNeverMadeItToDarwin

TojoNeverMadeItToDarwin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:22:36 +0000

#30 @Freespeaker
If satellites can take photos of that resolution, they don’t make it available to google.
AFIK the Sydney shots were done from planes.

By: brian

brian — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:09:30 +0000

@andyo
I don’t think the camera is the reason for the noise. I think the noise is due to the poor lighting and fast movement of iss relative to the pyramids, forcing the photographer to use a higher iso and short shutter speed. The camera really doesn’t make much of a difference.

By: Man-made Structures Seen from Space >> SmarterThanThat

Man-made Structures Seen from Space >> SmarterThanThat — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:52:45 +0000

[...] source of friendly astronomy-news commentary, Phil Plait (BadAstronomy.com) published a post regarding a new picture taken by Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut on board the International Space Station, clearly showing the pyramids of Egypt from [...]

By: Joey Joe Joe

Joey Joe Joe — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:28:38 +0000

The thing I love most about this thread is not the lovely picture, but all the people nerding out trying to work out the zoom and focal length of the camera.

By: IMForeman

IMForeman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:20:58 +0000

It’s telling that this picture of the Pyramids shows clearly, unambiguously man-made pyramids, and looks nothing at all like Hoagland’s so called “Pyramid” on Mars. Yet, that won’t stop him drawing all sorts of squiggly lines on decades old footage to show a correlation between the two.

By: Mike C.

Mike C. — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:43:36 +0000

Thanks for posting the cool photo. As for Earth orbiters being able to see the the Great Wall of China, isn’t that actually a myth?

By: Jules

Jules — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:48:09 +0000

I wonder how well the effects of the rabbit fence in Australia (on the surrounding soil) would be visible from as far out as the moon. To me it seems to be one of the few cases of human intervention which could be easily visible from that distance.

By: me2

me2 — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:20:02 +0000

Hay!- Looky here! Last time I checked, pretty much everything can be seen from space. Even my house, thanks to Google Earth.

By: Tom Hill

Tom Hill — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:34:30 +0000

Here’s a sample of the kind of lenses they have available at the ISS:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-23/html/jsc2009e207424.html

By: Pi-needles

Pi-needles — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:17:24 +0000

@ 32. Mike G Says:

How about The World and The Palm Islands in Dubai? They’re quite a bit bigger than the pyramids and offer plenty of favorable contrast for spotting from space.

Actually there are quite a few artificial islands that humans have created over time (& longer than you’d think) as I found checking up on that fount of all knowledge Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_island

Unfortunately a recent online news item suggest the Dubai world islands are getting washed away:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1007196/dubais-globe-islands-washing-away

So whether they still look like (33.) Tom Hill’s animation I’m not sure. I hope they do survive – think its a neat idea.

Finally, one more link from ironic pictures:

http://friendsofirony.com/2010/01/16/ironic-photos-every-time-someone-thinks-that-gore-kills-a-baby-seal/

I probably shouldn’t be bad & stir the AGW pot any more but still.

By: Pi-needles

Pi-needles — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:43:53 +0000

Thinking Human changes to Earth that are visible from space eg. the Dutch coastline as noted by (#4.) JenniferBurdoo & (#6.) Stephen P., the near-total disappeareance of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan / Uzbekistan ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea ) and one of more of the great lakes in Africa (Lake Chad was it?) is another example of inadvertant but major alterations we’ve made to the face of this planet.

To get a whole inland sea to shrink down to next to nothing by taking the water out of the rivers that feed it to grow cotton is pretty significant albeit not in a good way.

Plus also on a sad note dare I add, the disappearing / retreating glaciers and diminishing extent of polar sea ice caused by human-induced Global Warming?

By: Tom Hill

Tom Hill — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:12:26 +0000

There’s a dynamite animation of the Dubai area linked from this web page:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43120

By: Mike G

Mike G — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:03:50 +0000

How about The World and The Palm Islands in Dubai? They’re quite a bit bigger than the pyramids and offer plenty of favorable contrast for spotting from space.

By: nerd1951

nerd1951 — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:35:56 +0000

@Keith (the first one)

That’s silly. Everyone knows they were built as navigation markers for ancient astronauts.

By: FreeSpeaker

FreeSpeaker — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:52:17 +0000

I think the picture was faked. The pyramids are upside down. The point is on the top, pointing up.

As for what you can see from space, look at Bondi Beach in Sydney, northern end, on GoogleMaps. My son’s friend, that little perve, pointed it out to me when he surveyed bathing suit optional beaches.

By: Kilioopu

Kilioopu — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:27:15 +0000

In [Peter Hessler, Letter from China, “Walking the Wall,” The New Yorker, May 21, 2007, p. 58] it is pointed out that the Great Wall itself is somewhat of a myth. There are, of course, northern fortifications that were built in several dynasties. But, according to this article, the Great Wall as a distinct entity is a later creation. In fact, it’s not well studied or understood even now, and there is perhaps more mythology about it (including it’s visibility from the Moon) than facts.

If you get a chance, see the David Spindler/Jonathan Ball exhibit: “China’s Great Wall: The Forgotten Story”. It was in northern California last year, and was just in New York.

By: Pierre

Pierre — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:16:16 +0000

Eric @27, I can think of another better(?) condition: being on the
moon during a lunar eclipse. With a bit of luck, despite the bright ring
around the earth caused by the atmosphere, maybe it would
be possible to see the lights of a large metro area.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:02:35 +0000

You folks need to stop overthinking this. The myth states that the Great Wall is the only human-made object visible from the moon with the naked eye. Period.

And clearly that myth is busted.

I would have to guess that the only human-made thing theoretically visible to the naked eye from that distance would be city lights on the dark side of the Earth…and even that would require special conditions (a minimally-thin crescent Earth with the sun still below the horizon).

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:15:51 +0000

People who think that the great wall is something special in terms of being visible really haven’t thought about it much. Sure it’s very long, however it’s also very narrow, about 5m over most of it.

What other structures do we have which are about the same width, and stretch over long distances? Roads! The standard for the US highway system is that each lane is 12 feet wide, so virtually every road is at least 7 meters wide, and most being 15 meters or more wide. If you drive south from the Canadian border on the I-29 and keep on going South, you’ll eventually end up in Kansas City. That’s about 1200 km, and long portions of that are through isolated countryside.

Why would we be able to see the Great Wall, and not be able to see the I-29?

By: Oli

Oli — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:38:08 +0000

Actually, isn’t every human-made object visible from space? It just depends on the zoom…

By: kuhnigget

kuhnigget — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:27:01 +0000

Surely NASA wouldn’t let astronauts zoom around looking at things with their naked eyes? This is Amurica, darnit! How dare we pollute space with our nakedness!

(With a “desperately trying too hard” nod to the Voyager spacecraft plaque.)