Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Wall from the moon.

Dedicated to my dearly beloved Ms.Allergic-to-Aubergines(AtA).

AtA was arguing with me about the uniqueness of the Great China Wall. The uniqueness being 'The only man-made structure visible from the moon, naked eyed'. That was what her teacher told her, she said.
For my dear AtA and anyone who believes so, I'm sorry to disappoint.

The wall of China is barely visible from space and would be Okay-visible with extremely high resolution lenses. From the Lower earth Orbit, even many God-made, man-made structures cannot be seen properly. As altitude hikes up, you'd slowly zoom out of the sphere and away from structures you were looking at till then.
Earth, from the moon is seen only as an indistinct sphere . I've read that even shapes of countries cannot be figured out from there without proper equipment.Talk about a wall! It is just a myth that The Great Wall of China can be seen from the moon, when your toolkit is a pair of wide-open eyes.
Seems it was Richard Halliburton , the author of 'Second Book of Marvels', who first came up with this honor for the Chinese Wall.But unfortunately for him, it was only late after his death that Space folks succeeded in the first unmanned landing on the moon, and later still, manned ones. So, showering the Great Wall with such a compliment is actually baseless.
Sorry Folks. The Great Wall of China is not a sight-seeing hotspot on the Luna.

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