Neverside

Great Wall of China

Is the Great Wall of China visible from outer space or not? On MSN Encarta, it said that it is not, and here in my textbook it says that it is.

Which is it? :confused:

It depends on what you mean by outer space. In a low orbit just above the atmosphere at about 100 km high many human made objects can be seen such as highways, the greatwall and maybe the white house :O.
From the moons surface it is not posible since the moon is a good 380 000 km away from Earth.

I dont know if at some point all other objects fade in and only great wall is visible. NASA should try this.

*editttted

Last edited by Sesse, September 15th, 2004 12:29 AM (Edited 1 times)

I thought it was the only man made object that you can see from space?

well, acording to meet-greatwall.org and their roughly translated english site they say this:

Quote:

According to astronauts who looked back on earth from the moon, of all projects built by man, the Great Wall is the most conspicuous seen in space

It can't be seen from space. http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwal.htm

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Ehh, I got this from About.com:

Quote:

Many are familiar with the claim that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space or from the moon with the naked eye. This is simply not true.

From a low orbit of the earth, many artificial objects are visible on the earth, such as highways, ships in the sea, railroads, cities, fields of crops, and even some individual buildings. While at a low orbit, the Great Wall of China can be seen from space but it is not unique in that regard.

Furthermore, when leaving the earth's orbit and acquiring an altitude of more than a few thousand miles, no man-made objects are visible at all. NASA says, "The Great Wall can barely be seen from the Shuttle, so it would not be possible to see it from the Moon with the naked eye." Thus, it'd be tough to spot the Great Wall of China or any other object from the moon. Furthermore, from the moon, even the continents are barely visible.

Interesting, I always thought you could see it...

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i thought you could aswell.... :confused:

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Quote:

Originally posted by Oxy
It can't be seen from space. http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwal.htm

How about trying to read the whole article instead of just first two lines ?

It goes on like this

Quote:

..shows that pictures taken from low orbit reveal human-built structures such as highways, airports, bridges, dams, and components of the Kennedy Space Center.

Earths atmosphere is about 50km. If you go to an orbit at 60-70 km I m sure you can pretty well see it.

Quote:

Originally posted by Advocation
i thought you could aswell.... :confused:

What are you so upset about ? The article says you can see it in low orbits ...

Last edited by Sesse, September 15th, 2004 02:55 AM (Edited 1 times)

I've been to the moon.. and I've seen it

(goes back to his corner and rocks back in forth in the fetal position)