What is the only natural occuring object visible from space?
94921
auntb93 said: The only man-made object visible from any distance out is the Great Wall of China.\n\nThis is not true.\n\nIf we take "space" to mean a low Earth orbit such as the one travelled by the Space Shuttle (roughly 160 to 350 miles above Earth), the Great Wall claim fails twice. First of all, it's not the only object visible from that distance: NASA's Earth from Space photographic archive (particularly the Human Interactions section) shows that pictures taken from low orbit reveal human-built structures such as highways, airports, bridges, dams, and components of the Kennedy Space Center. Secondly, even though other objects are visible at this distance, according to Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt, the Great Wall is barely discernable, if not invisible:
148937
Use Google Earth. You can get an instant free program which enable you to see the earth by the images from satellites. Go to http://earth.google.com/
1136943
M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is the most distant object easily seen with the naked eye. In a very dark sky, you may be able to see M33, which may be 3 million light years distant.\n\nIt's a little more difficult to determine what is the  most distant individual star that can be seen with the naked eye, as it is apt to be some faint, nondescript star. Also, it is difficult to accurately determine the distance to a single star at distances over 1500 light years. P Cygni, a fifth magnitude star in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan or Northern Cross) is a very luminous star possibly 6000 light years away. This is probably a reasonable approximation of how far away a star can be seen. Note that this is still in our Milky Way Galaxy, which is around 100,000 light years in diameter. However, you might be able to see a supernova in a nearby galaxy.  SN1987A in the large Magellanic Cloud reached third magnitude, and it was fairly dim for a supernova.  (About magnitudes: six is about the dimmest visible, smaller numbers are brighter. The brightest star, Sirius is -1.)
32451
Actually, despite what has already been said...you can. However, define "see". It is very difficult, if not impossible to see with the naked eye, but can easily been seen using hi res cameras on satellites.\n\nSee here from the European Space Agency:\n\nhttp://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Proba_web_site/SEMTTHGHZTD_2.html
827946
When I was 3 years old I saw an object in my front yard very early in the morning before anybody in the neighborhood ever got up. It was about the size of a soccer ball and was shiny gold  in color. It was pulsing up and down about a foot each time. I remember this like it was yesterday (I am now 63 years old). I told my mom about it and when she came to look it shot up in the air at blistering speed and she never got to see it. It came back two more times but she never saw it. It never made a sound. This happened back in 1946 and I will never forget it. I saw another one when I was 19 years old it was at midnight and it flew over my house. It looked like it was on fire. It never made a noise either. Nobody was around at the time so I could show them. I had just got back from a date and everybody was in bed. This is my experience with UFO's.
843249
No where can it be seen?
879967
if you have a good enough telescope - you can see some stuff.\nyou can also see the robotic tractor that was left on Mars. (though you need more than a standard telescope for that)\nIt has been done by many people
651175
If you want to know the names of celestial objects, you need to be familiar with landmarks in the celestial sphere, such as Polaris, the Big Dipper, Orion, etc. These are easy to find constellations and stars that provide guides to harder to find objects. Get a star gazing guide, or the excellent Starry Night Pro software: http://www.starrynight.com/ .\nIf you mean how to tell satellites from planets and stars, note that objects near Earth do not scintillate (twinkle) like stars. Most satellites move very fast, and are obviously moving too fast for the Earth's rotation to be the only cause. Planets are extremely bright compared to stars and do not scintillate.\nDon't expect to see nebulas and other faraway objects without a (good, not department store style) telescope or a strong pair of binoculars. The only galaxy you can see with the naked eye is our own, the Milky Way, and at that only in non-light polluted areas. I have never seen the Milky Way from NYC, but from the equator, it's a beautiful sight (it's a milky white band across the sky).
807557
It's hardly surprising that we can see no sign of life out there.  Views of Earth taken from unmanned explorer craft like Voyager taken from within our own solar system show no signs of life either. If you can't see elephants, whales or even forests from only a few million miles away then looking at hazy dots that are planets thousands of light years away expecting to see obvious signs of life is a bit optimistic.\n\nIn addition, given the size of the Universe we can hardly claim to have looked everywhere whilst at the same time it seems inconceivable that some form of life has not evolved somewhere else.\n\nSpectroscopic analysis of stellar nebulae and other "gas clouds" in deep space has revealed the existence of basic organic compounds such as amino acids which are regarded as fundamental building blocks of all living things here on Earth. So if life itself hasn't been located elsewhere, some of the prerequisite precursors certainly have.\n\nThere are also several "fossils" found on meteorites believed to have come from Mars which may or may not prove to be the remains of living things which originated on Mars.
404864
Infinite, look at the stars. Through the earth's atmosphere one can only see approx 60 miles on a clear day.
940527
Can you think of ANY objects in space?\n\nHow do you suppose they were discovered?\n\nF'r Chrissakes, clearly this is a schoolwork question. DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK! IT'S SUPPOSED TO TEACH YOU, NOT YAHOO ANSWERS VOLUNTEERS, HOW TO DO RESEARCH.\n\nYeesh!
273384
Those photographs are not at all what you would see with the naked eye- even if you were in a spacecraft nearby.  The pictures are "artificially colored composites" using different colors in the human visual spectrum to represent the different gasses reflecting invisible light frequencies or impossibly subtle detail.\n\nFor a detailed explanation of color in astronomical photos, check out the link below to the Hubble Space Telescope FAQ's.\n\n++++++++\nAnd in response to a few snyde remarks from the peanut gallery, here is a direct quote from hubblesite.org:\n\n"Taking color pictures with the Hubble Space Telescope is much more complex than taking color pictures with a traditional camera. For one thing, Hubble doesn't use color film — in fact, it doesn't use film at all. Rather, its cameras record light from the universe with special electronic detectors. These detectors produce images of the cosmos not in color, but in shades of black and white.\n\nFinished color images are actually combinations of two or more black-and-white exposures to which color has been added during image processing.\n\nThe colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye."\n\nAny other comments?
965981
This question is asked very often, and sometimes it is not phrased correctly, just like: "Can you see the Great Wall of China from the shuttle or from the space station?". Of course you can see it from there! (Although personally I was not able to see it, as our inclination was not enough, or to put it in other words: our mission did not take us over that Wall.) In the special programme "Looking down on the Earth with Marilyn Monroe" I thoroughly explained that everything larger than 30 metres can be recognised with the naked eye from a near Earth orbit. And of course also the Great Wall. \n\nBut the well-known rumour is as follows: "Is the Great Wall of China the only man-made work (incl. cities etc.) that you can see from the Moon?" As (unfortunately) I cannot answer this question from my own personal experience, I asked two of my Apollo colleagues - Charles M. Duke (Apollo 16, 5th moonlanding, April 1972) and Eugene A. Cernan (Apollo 17, 6th moonlanding, December 1972) - to enlighten us with the answer. Their answer was as follows:\n\nCharles M. Duke (Apollo 16): "... I do not think that you can see anything created by mankind from the Moon. Nobody saw the Great Wall of China from the Moon. You cannot see any large cities or man-made objects from the Moon. It is already difficult enough to see the different continents from the Moon. ... It is a common misunderstanding that we were able to see the Great Wall of China from the Moon. I do not know how this came about."\n\nEugene A. Cernan (Apollo 17): "There are NO man-made objects that you could see from the distance of the Moon, neither with your naked eye nor with the monocular we had with us on the Apollo mission. ... Yes, you can see the Great Wall of China from 200-300 miles, from the Earth orbit of the shuttle, in space. I could also see the Dome Stadium in Houston on Gemini IX with my naked eye. But these things, including large cities, cannot be seen from the Moon neither during the day nor at night. ... You should realise that the Earth, which appears four times larger than the Moon , is covered in oceans and clouds. From the Moon, we see the Earth just as the Lord created it, we do NOT see any man-made objects." \n\n\nI think this is an answer to this probing question once and for all.
929659
reflection of light\n\nDuring daylight the sky has the appearance of a deep blue surface, but this is the result of the air scattering sunlight. [1] There is no "blue object" above the earth in any normal sense, so it is hard to say what object the sky is. The sky is thus sometimes defined as the denser gaseous zone of a planet's atmosphere. At night the sky has the appearance of a black surface or region scattered with stars. But if we then say that the sky is the entire visible universe, it would not be the same thing we see during the day.
1140662
If you mean the bright object sometimes near the moon when it's low in the sky around sunset or sunrise, it's Venus, otherwise known as the morning star or evening star. Three ways to verify that it is Venus: \n1. After the Sun and moon, it's the next brightest natural object in the sky.\n2. It's never seen more than a couple of hours after sunset in the western sky or before sunrise in the eastern sky, though it's bright enough to sometimes be visible just before sunset or just after sunrise.\n3. With good binoculars resting on something solid (to prevent vibration) you can sometimes make out a disk (or some part of it, depending on phase). Venus is the only planet whose disk can be seen without a telescope.
186009
No, this is an urban legend.  See the reference\nfor pictures taken by one of our astronauts\ndisproving it.\n\nNow if you're talking about being visible from\nsomewhere farther out in space (like the moon\nor another planet), then the answer is different.\n\nBut from a shuttle, things like open pit mines,\nairports, dams, and even the Great Pyramids are\nvisible.
973015
Unidentified Flying object\n\nusually "aliens"!