WEBVTT - Can I See the Stuff Astronauts Left On the Moon?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:08.799
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,

0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.000
<v Speaker 1>Christian Sager here, did you know that over a hundred

0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.920
<v Speaker 1>items have been left behind on the surface of the Moon.

0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:21.480
<v Speaker 1>We're talking about spacecraft, moon boots, cameras, flags, and even

0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:26.320
<v Speaker 1>ninety six bags of urine, feces and vomit. That's right, everybody,

0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.960
<v Speaker 1>astronauts dumped their porta potties on the Moon. Are you

0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.280
<v Speaker 1>thinking what I'm thinking? We could fly to the Moon

0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.360
<v Speaker 1>and steal all that stuff, but we better hurry because

0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.040
<v Speaker 1>several states have lobbied to make lunar landing sites into

0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.840
<v Speaker 1>national monuments, and while we'd get arrested before we execute

0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.839
<v Speaker 1>this great moonheist. Though, we'll need to locate where the

0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.199
<v Speaker 1>astronauts left the loot. But wait a minute, can we

0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.440
<v Speaker 1>even see what they left there? It turns out no,

0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.640
<v Speaker 1>not yet see The resolving power of even our best

0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.440
<v Speaker 1>telescopes is too low give in our distance from the Moon.

0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.959
<v Speaker 1>The best available today is the Hubble space telescope. From

0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.839
<v Speaker 1>its location in Earth's lower orbit. The Hubble only has

0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.720
<v Speaker 1>about a one and fifty meter resolution when pointed at

0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.200
<v Speaker 1>the Moon. So, for example, something really big like a

0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:21.680
<v Speaker 1>football stadium would only occupy two pixels in an image

0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.080
<v Speaker 1>that the hubble could generate, we definitely wouldn't be able

0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.479
<v Speaker 1>to see lunar rovers or landing bases, much less those

0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.920
<v Speaker 1>precious bags of Armstrong's poop. Probably the only thing we

0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.520
<v Speaker 1>can currently see on the Moon is a laser beam

0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.399
<v Speaker 1>reflector left there in nineteen sixty nine to measure the

0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:45.080
<v Speaker 1>distance back to Earth. However, there are several telescopes currently

0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.680
<v Speaker 1>in production that, once finished, will enhance the visibility of

0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:54.120
<v Speaker 1>the Moon's surface significantly. For instance, the Giant Magellan telescope

0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.680
<v Speaker 1>in northern Chile should be working by the year and

0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.920
<v Speaker 1>it's planned to have ten times the resolving power of

0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.920
<v Speaker 1>the hubble, giving it close to a fifteen meter resolution.

0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.760
<v Speaker 1>The lunar lander base is close to ten meters long,

0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.600
<v Speaker 1>so you could see it, but barely. But why settle

0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.960
<v Speaker 1>for squinting when the superior James Web Space telescope is

0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.840
<v Speaker 1>shooting for a launch date in the web will have

0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:25.080
<v Speaker 1>eighteen hexagonal reflectors to collect light with, making it seven

0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.320
<v Speaker 1>times the size of the hubble and a hundred times

0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.320
<v Speaker 1>more powerful. That will give it a one point five

0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.880
<v Speaker 1>meter resolution, more than enough to locate landers, rovers and

0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.680
<v Speaker 1>hopefully bags and bags of extrement. How much do you

0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:47.480
<v Speaker 1>think we can get for those? On eBay? And check

0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.560
<v Speaker 1>out the brain stuff channel on YouTube. And for more

0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.120
<v Speaker 1>on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

0:02:52.120 --> 0:03:06.640
<v Speaker 1>works dot com