You might want to watch "Paper Moon", I asked the same question a thousand times!
Moon Rovers... Can we see them?, page 1
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reply posted on 4-12-2008 @ 03:20 PM by xbranscombex
Originally posted by guliver
You might want to watch "Paper Moon", I asked the same question a thousand times!
Thanks.
Found the whole movie:
www.youtube.com...
but damn..
no one here can answer my questions???
reply posted on 4-12-2008 @ 04:39 PM by LunaCognita
Hi xbranscombex
To answer your questions,
Yes, the rovers are still up there. They did not bring them back with them.
Is it possible to see the rovers (or any remnants of the Apollo program for that matter) through even the most powerful Earth-based telescopes?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
This comes from a 238-page General Electric (Apollo Support Department) document written for NASA back in 1963, and although it is 45 years old, what it has to say regarding the effects of atmospheric distortion on the “seeing” capabilities of optical telescopes (their ability to resolve objects on the moon) is still entirely relevant today.
From: Survey of the Physical and Environmental Parameters of the Moon (Chapter 4.1 - OBSERVING THE MOON - pages 51 and 52)
On average clear nights, images of a celestial point at the prime focus of a telescope are spread out by turbulence to a diameter equivalent to three seconds of arc. On nights of good seeing, the spread is equivalent to one second of arc, while really exceptional seeing, which occurs only rarely, results in an image spread equivalent to twenty-five one hundredth seconds of arc. At the moon's mean distance from the earth, these angles correspond to the following linear distances:
3 seconds of arc - equivalent to 3.48 statute miles
1 second of arc - equivalent to 1.16 statute miles
0.25 second of arc - equivalent to 0.29 statute mile (1530 feet)
The bad "seeing" sets an insurmountable barrier to observing fine detail, either visually or photographically. The requirements of good "seeing" are so severe that the best photographs taken with the one-hundred-inch telescope fail to reveal craters less than one mile in diameter. It is doubtful that the displacement, appearance, or disappearance of a spherical mass of one mile in diameter on some lunar mountain ridge could be seen on the best photographs of the moon.
So, this gives you some idea of just how naturally obfuscative our Earth’s atmosphere is to even the best optical telescopes, and how you can simply forget about ANY chance of EVER seeing the flags or LRVs (rovers) or LM descent stages or anything else that was left up there during Apollo.
In fact, from here on Earth through a telescope you would NOT be able to discern if there was a Great Pyramid-sized pyramid sitting on the valley floor at Taurus Littrow, nor could your eyes ever detect if there was an Eiffel Tower-sized construct proudly standing on the rim of Copernicus. The “seeing” conditions created by light diffraction and atmospheric turbulence, even in the best/cleanest atmospheric viewing scenario (and even with a 100-inch telescope), still leave us incapable of achieving the resolution required to detect things of that size from Earth.
Here is an image taken from lunar orbit back in 1972 that shows the Lunar Module "Challenger" parked on the lunar surface, and this is about as good a shot as you are gonna find in the archives. This is a crop from one of the highest-resolution images of the lunar surface that has ever been released by NASA (or anyone else). It was taken from the CSM as it overflew the Apollo 17 LZ on December 11th, 1972, just minutes before the astronauts on the surface began their first EVA. It was shot using what was called the "Panoramic Camera", taken from an altitude of 113.07 kms up. This version is labeled, and the LM and it's shadow are detectable here.
Crop from Apollo 17 Panoramic frame #AS17-P-2903
Hope this helps!
Cheers!
To answer your questions,
Yes, the rovers are still up there. They did not bring them back with them.
Is it possible to see the rovers (or any remnants of the Apollo program for that matter) through even the most powerful Earth-based telescopes?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
This comes from a 238-page General Electric (Apollo Support Department) document written for NASA back in 1963, and although it is 45 years old, what it has to say regarding the effects of atmospheric distortion on the “seeing” capabilities of optical telescopes (their ability to resolve objects on the moon) is still entirely relevant today.
From: Survey of the Physical and Environmental Parameters of the Moon (Chapter 4.1 - OBSERVING THE MOON - pages 51 and 52)
On average clear nights, images of a celestial point at the prime focus of a telescope are spread out by turbulence to a diameter equivalent to three seconds of arc. On nights of good seeing, the spread is equivalent to one second of arc, while really exceptional seeing, which occurs only rarely, results in an image spread equivalent to twenty-five one hundredth seconds of arc. At the moon's mean distance from the earth, these angles correspond to the following linear distances:
3 seconds of arc - equivalent to 3.48 statute miles
1 second of arc - equivalent to 1.16 statute miles
0.25 second of arc - equivalent to 0.29 statute mile (1530 feet)
The bad "seeing" sets an insurmountable barrier to observing fine detail, either visually or photographically. The requirements of good "seeing" are so severe that the best photographs taken with the one-hundred-inch telescope fail to reveal craters less than one mile in diameter. It is doubtful that the displacement, appearance, or disappearance of a spherical mass of one mile in diameter on some lunar mountain ridge could be seen on the best photographs of the moon.
So, this gives you some idea of just how naturally obfuscative our Earth’s atmosphere is to even the best optical telescopes, and how you can simply forget about ANY chance of EVER seeing the flags or LRVs (rovers) or LM descent stages or anything else that was left up there during Apollo.
In fact, from here on Earth through a telescope you would NOT be able to discern if there was a Great Pyramid-sized pyramid sitting on the valley floor at Taurus Littrow, nor could your eyes ever detect if there was an Eiffel Tower-sized construct proudly standing on the rim of Copernicus. The “seeing” conditions created by light diffraction and atmospheric turbulence, even in the best/cleanest atmospheric viewing scenario (and even with a 100-inch telescope), still leave us incapable of achieving the resolution required to detect things of that size from Earth.
Here is an image taken from lunar orbit back in 1972 that shows the Lunar Module "Challenger" parked on the lunar surface, and this is about as good a shot as you are gonna find in the archives. This is a crop from one of the highest-resolution images of the lunar surface that has ever been released by NASA (or anyone else). It was taken from the CSM as it overflew the Apollo 17 LZ on December 11th, 1972, just minutes before the astronauts on the surface began their first EVA. It was shot using what was called the "Panoramic Camera", taken from an altitude of 113.07 kms up. This version is labeled, and the LM and it's shadow are detectable here.
Crop from Apollo 17 Panoramic frame #AS17-P-2903
Hope this helps!
Cheers!
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