where is the flag on the moon?

conceited

:pac:

Diogenes

There isn't a single flag on the moon, there are six of them, each Apollo mission left a flag, and abandoned equipment.

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Edurda/Apollo/landing_sites.html

Is your question. Why can't I see the flags? We do not have telescopes that will give you a close up of old glory. Well sorry we don't, however what we do have is this.

Ringed by footprints, sitting in the moondust, lies a 2-foot wide panel studded with 100 mirrors pointing at Earth: the "lunar laser ranging retroreflector array." Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong put it there on July 21, 1969, about an hour before the end of their final moonwalk. Thirty-five years later, it's the only Apollo science experiment still running.

University of Maryland physics professor Carroll Alley was the project's principal investigator during the Apollo years, and he follows its progress today. "Using these mirrors," explains Alley, "we can 'ping' the moon with laser pulses and measure the Earth-moon distance very precisely. This is a wonderful way to learn about the moon's orbit and to test theories of gravity."

Here's how it works: A laser pulse shoots out of a telescope on Earth, crosses the Earth-moon divide, and hits the array. Because the mirrors are "corner-cube reflectors," they send the pulse straight back where it came from. "It's like hitting a ball into the corner of a squash court," explains Alley. Back on Earth, telescopes intercept the returning pulse--"usually just a single photon," he marvels.


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The round-trip travel time pinpoints the moon's distance with staggering precision: better than a few centimeters out of 385,000 km, typically.

Targeting the mirrors and catching their faint reflections is a challenge, but astronomers have been doing it for 35 years. A key observing site is the McDonald Observatory in Texas where a 0.7 meter telescope regularly pings reflectors in the Sea of Tranquility (Apollo 11), at Fra Mauro (Apollo 14) and Hadley Rille (Apollo 15), and, sometimes, in the Sea of Serenity.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/21jul_llr.htm

Hobbes

Check out mythbusters as well. They did a NASA special where they debunk a lot of the conspiracy theories.

Mahatma coat

so apparently the flags are here



http://www.physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/lrrr.html

rocky25

Mythbusters " Flag On The Moon "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBCfuKs9i8

meglome

I wonder are the mythbusters in on it now. :rolleyes:

conceited

I'm sold! Thanks for the info and links lads.

Kernel

rocky25 wrote: »

Mythbusters " Flag On The Moon "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBCfuKs9i8

Hey look, I was right they did use a frame on the flag. God, I remember the abuse levelled at me from Diogenes on that...

DEVEREUX

theres no flags on the moon because the U.S never set foot there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIw06kd--is

SuperSean11

clareyfairy wrote: »

theres no flags on the moon because the U.S never set foot there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIw06kd--is

Your very closed minded. One youtube video isnt a lot of evidence.

DEVEREUX

SuperSean11 wrote: »

Your very closed minded. One youtube video isnt a lot of evidence.

Im not closed minded at all ! far from it !

Just pointing people to an interesting link.:)

bonkey

Kernel wrote: »

Hey look, I was right they did use a frame on the flag. God, I remember the abuse levelled at me from Diogenes on that...

As that video shows, they had a vertical and a horizontal support.

If you want to call that a frame, then I guess you could equally call a flag-pole a frame.

Generally speaking, a frame encloses something. 2-of-4 sides isn't a frame.

ETA - I'd also add that the "abuse" levelled at you from Diogenes was from the comment that the flag was not made from traditional cloth. The flag was made from cloth. You subsequently got to the notion that there was a wire frame inside the flag. There wasn't. There was a rigid horizontal support at the top of the flag.

King Mob

Unfortunatly according to Dr.Phil Plait on the skeptic's guide to the universe this week the nylon flag would have been dissolved by ultraviolet rays by now:(

mr kilo

cheese

mr kilo

chedder cheese

Tony Broke

How come we can see planets on galaxies, trillions and trillions miles away with Hubble, but we cant see the stuff left on the moon?

The distance between ous and the moon is something like 384,403 Km and its 1/4 of the earths size, yet we cant see small objects with Hubble.

But how come then, we can see a planet 5 times the size of ours 193,120,800,000,000km away with Hubble?

It just doesnt make sense to me.

King Mob

Tony Broke wrote: »

How come we can see planets on galaxies, trillions and trillions miles away with Hubble, but we cant see the stuff left on the moon?

The distance between ous and the moon is something like 384,403 Km and its 1/4 of the earths size, yet we cant see small objects with Hubble.

But how come then, we can see a planet 5 times the size of ours 193,120,800,000,000km away with Hubble?

It just doesnt make sense to me.

We can't see planets around other stars let alone in other galaxies they are too small and far away.

axer

Here is the maths to explain why we are unable to view the flags from earth:
http://www.geocities.com/humealumni/flag.htm
Basically a mirror with a diameter of 110m would be needed and it would have to be in orbit because of the turbulence of the earth's atmosphere not really worth the effort just to see some flags and old junk.

Tony Broke

King Mob wrote: »

We can't see planets around other stars let alone in other galaxies they are too small and far away.

How come we have images 100,000's of light years out then, if we cant see them?

Captain Chaos

King Mob wrote: »

We can't see planets around other stars let alone in other galaxies they are too small and far away.

Em.. yes we can and scientists have detected around 100 planets orbiting other stars, alot of them are bigger than Jupiter, they can only be seen when they pass infront of their parent star.

Tony Broke

axer wrote: »

Here is the maths to explain why we are unable to view the flags from earth:
http://www.geocities.com/humealumni/flag.htm
Basically a 110m mirror would be needed and it would have to be in orbit because of the turbulence of the earth's atmosphere.

I know that, my question is how do we have images like above and we cant see objects on the moon.

It doesnt make sense to me.

King Mob

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Em.. yes we can and scientists have detected around 100 planets orbiting other stars, alot of them are bigger than Jupiter, they can only be seen when they pass infront of their parent star.

I meant that you couldn't get an image of one, not that they couldn't be detected.

axer

Tony Broke wrote: »

I know that, my question is how do we have images like above and we cant see objects on the moon.

It doesnt make sense to me.

You dont actually see much detail of any of the planets or stars in that image.

King Mob

Tony Broke wrote: »

How come we have images 100,000's of light years out then, if we cant see them?

Stars and galaxies are very very large and very very bright, planets not so much, and lunar landers even less so.

Tony Broke

axer wrote: »

You dont actually see much detail of any of the planets or stars in that image.

Yes but we can still see them, even though they are billions and billions of miles away and the moon is only a short distance from ous relative to those.

Yet we can only see an object 300 feet long and 250 feet wide on the moon.

Anyone have the math on that?

King Mob

Tony Broke wrote: »

Yes but we can still see them, even though they are billions and billions of miles away and the moon is only a short distance from ous relative to those.

Yet we can only see an object 300 feet long and 250 feet wide on the moon.

Anyone have the math on that?

Can you not see the scale on the bottom of the picture?
That galaxy is about 100,000 lightyears across.
That's pretty big.

axer

Tony Broke wrote: »

Yes but we can still see them, even though they are billions and billions of miles away and the moon is only a short distance from ous relative to those.

Yet we can only see an object 300 feet long and 250 feet wide on the moon.

Anyone have the math on that?

It is the same math that I linked to earlier. As King Mob pointed out, the galaxies are very very big and the stars are very bright and also very big but you are looking for detail down to two feet or so on something that is 221,000 miles away. The image of that galaxy is a very distant image, it does not show any detail of anything inside of it.

Tony Broke

King Mob wrote: »

Can you not see the scale on the bottom of the picture?
That galaxy is about 100,000 lightyears across.
That's pretty big.

Of course, its just amazing to think we can see that far away, but cant see nothing of importance on the moon.

King Mob

Tony Broke wrote: »

Of course, its just amazing to think we can see that far away, but cant see nothing of importance on the moon.

Do you not get perspective or something?
Galaxy = very big approx. 100000 lightyears
Moon lander = very small approx. 5 metres

Tony Broke

King Mob wrote: »

Do you not get perspective or something?
Galaxy = very big approx. 100000 lightyears
Moon lander = very small approx. 5 metres

Yes, but it seems out of whack

King Mob

Tony Broke wrote: »

Yes, but it seems out of whack

Do the math, it isn't.
Just because you personally don't understand something does mean there's a conspiracy.