wall of china

[bonzosdog]

can you see the great wall of china outside of earths atmosphere

[Buenchico]

Yes, and a great deal more as well:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/visible_from_space _031006.html

Chris

[tubeway]

This website is about aided view - as the great wall of China is only a few yards wide - I do not think that you could see it unaided from space.

[jake-the-peg]

No, not with the unaided eye. This is an urbam myth that seems to have been going nearly 70 years!

http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwal.htm

At this rate it's going to make the century!

[Whickerman]

In all fairness jake, there's a helluva difference between 'outside the atmosphere' and the moon.

Yes you can see it from outside the atmosphere, no you can't see it from the moon.

Saying that, you can see the moon from the great wall...

[jake-the-peg]

Well NASA astronaut Jay Apt disagrees:

We look for the Great Wall of China. Although we can see things as small as airport runways, the Great Wall seems to be made largely of materials that have the same color as the surrounding soil. Despite persistent stories that it can be seen from the moon, the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles up!

Which isn't surprising. The resolution of the eye is about 60 arcseconds and the great wall would be about 6 arcseconds from 200Km up (if it's 3m wide)

Anyway that's why I believe you can't see it from space Whickerman. Why do you believe you can?