Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is a classic
Speaker 1: episode from our previous host, Christian Sager. This one came
Speaker 1: about when we got curious, what all have we humans
Speaker 1: left behind on the Moon and can we check it
Speaker 1: out with a decent telescope? Hey, brain Stuff, Christian Sager? Here,
Speaker 1: did you know that over a hundred items have been
Speaker 1: left behind on the surface of the Moon. We're talking
Speaker 1: about spacecraft, moon boots, cameras, flags, and even nine six
Speaker 1: bags of urine, feces and vomit. That's right, everybody, astronauts
Speaker 1: dumped their porta potties on the Moon. Are you thinking
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking. We could fly to the Moon and
Speaker 1: steal all that stuff, but we better hurry because several
Speaker 1: states have lobbied to make lunar landing sites into national monuments,
Speaker 1: and while we'd get arrested before we execute this great moonheist, though,
Speaker 1: we'll need to locate where the astronauts left the loot.
Speaker 1: But wait a minute, can we even see what they
Speaker 1: left there? It turns out no, not yet. See the
Speaker 1: resolving power of even our best telescopes is too low.
Speaker 1: Given our distance from the Moon. The best available today
Speaker 1: is the Hubble space telescope from its location in Earth's
Speaker 1: lower orbit. The Hubble only has about a one and
Speaker 1: fifty meter resolution when pointed at the Moon, so for example,
Speaker 1: something really big like a football stadium would only occupy
Speaker 1: two pixels in an image that the Hubble could generate.
Speaker 1: We definitely wouldn't be able to see lunar rovers or
Speaker 1: landing bases, much less those precious bags of Armstrong's poop.
Speaker 1: Probably the only thing we can currently see on the
Speaker 1: Moon is a laser beam reflector left there in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine to measure the distance back to Earth. However,
Speaker 1: there are several telescopes currently in production that, once finished,
Speaker 1: will enhance the visibility of the Moon's surface significantly. For instance,
Speaker 1: the giant Magellan telescope in northern Chile should be working
Speaker 1: by the year and it's planned to have ten times
Speaker 1: the resolving power of the Hubble, giving it close to
Speaker 1: a fifteen meter resolution. The lunar lander base is close
Speaker 1: to ten meters long, so you could see it, but barely.
Speaker 1: But why settle for squinting when the superior James Web
Speaker 1: space telescope is shooting for a launch date in the
Speaker 1: web will have eighteen hexagonal reflectors to collect light with,
Speaker 1: making it seven times the size of the Hubble and
Speaker 1: a hundred times more powerful. That will give it a
Speaker 1: one point five meter resolution, more than enough to locate landers,
Speaker 1: rovers and hopefully bags and bags of excrement. How much
Speaker 1: do you think we can get for those on eBay?
Speaker 1: And Today's episode was written by Christian and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.