Toolbag discovered by astronomer!!

Incredible that something so small can be spotted from the ground, yet somehow, the super secret stealth stations up there still evade observers.

reply to post by expatwhite


Orbital drag is caused by the atmosphere itself. Although low earth orbit is pretty much a vaccuum, occasional molecules of air manage to make it up that far. The amount of molecules that high is determined by the level of solar activity, but eventually all LEO satellites are slowly dragged back to earth. More surface area = more drag, more mass = more inertia to resist drag.

Originally posted by johnb
Well surely if they can track this they should be able to provide photos of the moon landings ie what was left behind.
I'll be waiting but won't hold my breath.

Tracking a point light source is very different from resolving it. Even this close to the earth it was impossible for the astronomer's scope to resolve the object, thus it's just a point light source. If there was no moon at the moon and just the manmade objects at that point in space, you could "find" them by doing a sufficiently long enough exposure to see them as point light sources against the black of space. Since the moon is there that's not possible, you must resolve them or you can't see them at all.

Originally posted by RFBurns
Ya its amazing how things can be found from devices parked 300+ miles up in orbit and read postage stamps clearly and even see the crack of sheeple's arses as they bend over putting their heads into the sand.


Yet we cannot get clean, clear crisp images of things on the Moon or Mars.



Cheers!!!!

 

Mod Edit: Advertising removed. Please see Terms and Conditions of Use section 4) Advertising. Thank you - Jak


[edit on 26/11/08 by JAK]

hahaha, very well put. And when they do show us the Hi Rez Images of Mars you can see that they are completely computer generated and fake looking.

reply to post by Mike Shackled


What makes you think high resolution images of mars are fake? What about it looks "fake"? By the way, resolving a 1 square meter toolbag in an orbit of 300km (though that's not what this astronomer did, the toolbag is just a point light source like the stars in his video, so he didn't resolve anything), that would be the same as resolving an object 1.2 km wide on the moon. In other words, it's still far more difficult to see any of the equipment left on the moon than it is to resolve an object 1 meter wide in earth orbit, by a factor of about a thousand lol.

[edit on 2-12-2008 by ngchunter]

I'm sorry but I'm not surprised at all.

It's a regular junk yard up there now we and the former soviets have left so much junk up there that I hear that NASA and the other space agencies actually have to consider what they know is floating around up there before they launch something in order to avoid impacts and that would be a desaster!