Bright Venus (bottom) and Jupiter are joined by the Hyades (right of Jupiter) and Seven Sisters star cluster (top) in the eastern sky at the start of morning twilight today. Photo: Bob King
I got up at 2:30 and casually surveyed the sky while poking around with the telescope till 4. Total meteor count: 0 Delta Aquarids and 2 unrelated meteors. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Sharing the 50-degree temperatures with the crickets and katydids that inhabit the dewy grass was pleasant enough. Venus and Jupiter along with the Hyades and Seven Sisters star clusters totally jazzed up the eastern sky, and at 4:06 a.m. the space station breezed by. I hunted for the Progress cargo ship along, ahead of and behind the station but never saw it. Did you have better luck?
Apollo 16 astronaut John Young hops while saluting the flag in April 1972. Credit: NASA
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) keeps on giving. Flying only 31 miles high above the moon’s surface it snapped a set of newly-released photos of the Apollo landing sites that plainly show the U.S. flags planted by the astronauts.
The flag that John Young saluted is still visible in this picture taken by the LRO. The gray-colored blob is the flag; its contrastier shadow to the left is easier to make out. Also seen are the lunar descent module, astronaut tracks, the Lunar Rover and its tracks. Credit: NASA
One of the most common questions asked by the public when we’re looking at the moon through a telescope is why we can’t we see the American flags or any other sign of Apollo with the Hubble Space Telescope. It IS the most powerful telescope, right? Here’s the rub. The smallest possible thing Hubble can see on the moon is about 328 feet across or the length of a football field. While impressive feat of resolution, no Apollo spacecraft comes anywhere near that size. Every piece of man-made hardware is below the space telescope’s resolution limit.
Because of the lighting angle, the Apollo 17 stands out even better than Apollo 16′s. Credit: NASA
The trick to seeing flags and other details is not necessarily a bigger telescope; it’s getting a camera in orbit close to the moon. That’s what the LRO’s been doing for past few years. Its cameras can record objects 1.6 feet across. Lots of things, including lunar descent modules, experiments placed there by astronauts and even their footpaths come into focus in LRO’s eye. And now, the flags.
Astronaut Harrison Schmitt stands on the surface of the moon next to the U. S. flag at the Taurus- Littrow landing site during the Apollo 17 mission. A “half-moon” Earth is visible at top. Credit: NASA
I swear I can see the contrast difference between the stripes and the dark, starry patch and even a hint of the flagpole in the Apollo 16 photo. Pretty incredible!
The only flag we probably won’t ever see is the first one, planted there by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. Aldrin reported it was blown over by rocket exhaust as the astronauts left the moon to return to the orbiting command module.
Since the flags are made of nylon they won’t last terribly long under the extreme conditions on the lunar surface. Strong ultraviolet light from the sun has probably already caused the colors to fade. Over a longer time, the flags will turn brittle until one day crumbling into little heaps of dust during a moonquake.
Click HERE for full resolution views of the Apollo landing sites taken by LRO.
i think what i find most offensive is the fact we have sats posted overhead that can make it a person’s bic pen in hand from 100 miles above but we cant have a better image than these from 30 miles above..
im sure it’s because the LRO is what….antiquated/outdated/been there floating around 40+ years??
Doc,
The flags are incredibly small. The largest object the Hubble Space Telescope can resolve on the moon is about 300 feet across. That’s pretty darn small but much, much bigger than any piece of Apollo hardware. Only the moon-orbiting LRO, when its orbit was lowered to a mere 31 miles, could see such tiny details on the moon. You do bring up a great point however – why not a bigger telescope in orbit around the moon to record details like we can from Earth orbit? Possibly an issue with cost? BTW, LRO was only launched in 2009.
While I’m not one of the conspiracy theorists that believe the moon landing never happened, I have always wondered why the flag seems to move as though there was wind even though space is a vacuum.
Hi Jason,
The flag flapped because of the exhaust expelled by the lunar module when it blasted off the surface of the moon on its return to the orbiting command service module. The exhaust and dust were enough to blow the Apollo 11 flag to the ground.
If you’re referring to it waving when they placed it down then that’s easy, it was still moving from when the astronauts placed it. It’s an upside L frame that holds the flag and the top wiggled a bit when being placed into its spot. Nothing difficult to understand unless you’re trying to make it out to more than it was, like the conspiracy theorists.
I love it when you call someone that doesn’t believe the “official story” a conspiracy theorist like it’s an insult. Like all of the things that the government has lied about that was later declassified and showed that they were lying. All the people that doubted those stories were called nut job conspiracy theorists. Like all the radiation testing done on people throughout the country and Agent Orange used against everyone. In every case the conspirator is both parties technically. Although I do not make any claims, I still think that it doesn’t hurt to question the “official story”. Just tell me this, what of the Van Allen Radiation Belt and the absolute lack of radiation protection on all Apollo rockets and the PLSS suits. No radiation fogging on any stills or video footage when in fact even to this day our technology still cannot overcome even 5 rems of exposure, yet, all stills came out crystal clear. So many lighting issues like when they have the sun back lighting a still and the front of an astronaut is still lit up. I dunno, I just can’t find any answers to these questions.
Nathan,
Please don’t suggest the Apollo missions were a conspiracy. I am not going to spend time arguing their reality especially in light of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photos which I had hoped would finally put this non-issue to rest. Just to touch on your questions:
* Van Allen Belts: The Apollo astronauts were not only shielded by layers of aluminum within their craft, their passage through the belts was brief and led only to minor radiation exposure within the allowable limits (between 0.16 and 1.14 rads which is well below the limit.) Bottom line – they flew to the moon and survived, many into old age and to this day.
* True, the sun illuminates one side of the astronauts but sunlight reflected from the surface provides a considerable amount of additional or “fill” light for the other side.
Well I do appreciate you taking the time to respond but I don’t know… Will you watch this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKainIQiaKA
It is a bit long, but I don’t know what to think after I watched it. I really don’t want you to look at anything you don’t want to but it seems like there are so many discrepancies. I am not trying to stir the pot. Please trust I am completely sincere. I have always had my eye to the sky and I am sure you and I have a lot in common. I just want someone who can elaborate with me. Thanks.
Nathan,
It’s so depressing to watch this. I gave up after a while. It hurts to see people, who really don’t know details of the lunar landscape, what it was like inside the Apollo capsule or even who understand the basics of shadows, wheedle away at a great achievement. Just one example – take a look at this photo and you’ll see how utterly incorrect they are about shadows. Notice that depending the distance between you and the object, shadows diverge at different angles exactly as in the Apollo images. Here’s the pic: http://spiritualclarity.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/william-guion-oak-alley-light-and-shadows3.jpg
Astro Bob, you have the patience of a saint. We live in a great country but, alas, a crass society. Thank you for shedding additional light on this, one of man’s greatest achievements. Wish there were more like you.
David,
Thank you and I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
Astro Bob I applaud you, as David said you truly do have great patience. I my self question the so called “official version” of most things the government puts out. I am of the belief that there were six maned missions to the Moon and twelve American Astronauts walked on the Moon and collected sample and photographs. I have been wrong about many things before however. You seem to very knowable about the subject and I have one serious question to ask you If you could find the time to reply. I haven’t been able to find a suitable answer that I find plausible. That my just be my fault for not looking in the right place or not understanding what I’ve read. Could you explain to me why no stars appear in any of the pictures take from the moon?
Hi Mark,
Thank you for your kind words. The answer to your question is easy: shooting pictures on a sunlit moon is much the same as on a sunny day on Earth. The camera shutter speed is very fast because light is abundant. To photograph stars – which are nearly as dim at the moon as they are from Earth – requires a much longer exposure and a tripod. Since the astronauts were photographing rocks, scenes and each other, the exposure times were much too brief to record faint objects like stars which require exposure times of many seconds. You won’t see stars in any of the sunlit pictures of Earth taken from the space station for the same reason. To photograph stars and auroras, astronauts use time exposures and high ISO speeds when they fly over the night side of Earth.
Thanks a lot for that. Makes perfect since I should have been able to figure that one out myself since im familiar with the long exposure process used to photograph nebulas, gas clouds and such in space with a telescope. Which I think is basically the same concept with shutter speed and exposure.
I truly appreciate you response
Most welcome Mark.
no manned mission to the moon for the past 40 years or so….that is the fact that fuels the conspiracy theories. And why not? Fairly obvious that humanity is not able to mount a manned mission there today, much less 40 years ago with space science in its infancy.
was there a strong motive to mislead the World? – yes. Was there the capability to fake the missions – yes. Going for a spin around the Earth and faking the rest is entirely plausible.
Nagyelme,
While no landings may sound plausible to you, they nonetheless happened and have given us a bounty of information about the moon. Some of the hardware the astronauts left there still functions to this day and provides valuable data. We haven’t been there since because there’s been no strong desire on the public’s part or the political will. The U.S. changed direction after the moon landings, which accomplished a Cold War goal, and focused on developing the shuttle and space station as well as expanding robotic missions to all sorts of interesting places in the solar system.
Myth Busters did an episode on this. Even if you doubt, how can you with people proving the moon landing was actually true?
It is so cool!