Comments on: Man-made Structures Seen from Space

By: mike

mike — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 04:22:42 +0000

wow what a great read. I can’t believe we can see that from space….I would love to go into space one day

By: mooeypoo

mooeypoo — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:21:28 +0000

@ASFalcon13, EXACTLY!!! And we can see quite a lot of detail from google map, and yet, still, people wonder whether or not items are visible from space. ha!

To be fair, though, the lower-latitude images from google maps are largely from planes and not from satellites, but still, even the low-orbit satellites (around 300km or so) show us quite a lot of detail.

By: ASFalcon13

ASFalcon13 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:12:56 +0000

Of course we can see man-made objects from space. If we couldn’t, why would the government invest so much money in spy satellites?

Of course, if you’d like further proof, there’s a website called Google Maps that features a combination of aerial and satellite imagery of all kinds of man-made objects

By: Keith Hearn

Keith Hearn — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:12:39 +0000

There’s also the question of what do you mean when you say “see”? See with your naked eyes? Whose naked eyes, human vision varies a lot. See with a camera? The photo of the pyramids is given as “proof” that the pyramids are visible from space, but what kind of lens was used? A telephoto? We’ve had cameras in space for decades that can see much smaller objects than the pyramids. My house isn’t the size of the pyramids, but it’s clearly visible on satellite photos. So is it visible from space? I doubt even the sharpest pair of eyes could make it out from space, even for low definitions of “space”.

And how about defining “man made object”? Is the Panama Canal a man made object? I’m pretty sure it’s visible from space (for most definitions of “visible” and “space”). I think most would agree that the Hoover Dam is a man made object, but what of Lake Mead? Is a lake created by man a “man made object”? Hmmm, I think it’s probably not an “object”, but I’m sure there are those that might disagree (on the Internet, someone will always disagree). Pick any of thousands of malls or airports, all of which are larger than the pyramids.

Basically, the whole question is ill-defined. But for further analysis, see the “Visibilty from space” section of the Wikipedia article on the Great Wall of China at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China#Visibility_from_space . Based on that (with the usual caveats about trusting what one reads on Wikipedia), the Great Wall is just barely, maybe, almost visible from LEO. If you know exactly where to look. And if the weather is really good and the light is right. And if you have good eyes. And maybe a good imagination.

By: mooeypoo

mooeypoo — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:13:20 +0000

Right, and astronauts are considered officially astronauts when they passed 50km above the surface of the Earth. You can see quite more than just the pyramids from both these heights (50km and 100km).

By: nowoo

nowoo — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:05:07 +0000

One definition of the edge of space is the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100km:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line