# Are there no telescopes on Earth capable of confirming the recent NASA pics of 'moon debris'?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-no-telescopes-on-earth-capable-of-confirming-the-recent-nasa-pics-of-moon-debris/504030>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 23, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-no-telescopes-on-earth-capable-of-confirming-the-recent-nasa-pics-of-moon-debris/504030 "2009-07-23T19:53:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-no-telescopes-on-earth-capable-of-confirming-the-recent-nasa-pics-of-moon-debris/504030/21 "2009-07-24T19:31:08Z")

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> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Could Hubble spot the Viking landers on the surface of Mars with any degree of clarity, or (assuming it could find them, and they were adequately illuminated) the Voyager probes heading off into deep space?

Not a chance. As we already said, you need a telescope 10 times larger than the Hubble to even see the Apollo lunar module on the Moon. The Viking landers are smaller than the Apollo lunar module, and Mars is 150 times further away than the Moon even at closest approach.

Also, absolutely no chance of seeing Voyager probes either. They are now further away than [Sedna](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna), which is a dwarf planet almost 1000 **miles** in diameter and is only about magnitude 21 in brightness. The Hubble Deep Field images go down to about magnitude 30, which would be about 1500 times fainter than Sedna. That means we can probably detect something maybe 30 miles across at that distance. The Voyager is a couple _yards_ across.

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