Is the Great Wall of China Really Visible From Space?

Misconception Mini 2

How visible is the Great Wall of China from the International Space Station? What other human made objects can astronauts see in orbit? Watch today's misconception mini to find out...

Thanks everyone

[MrNegativecreep]

even as a child I didn't believe this one, just one look at the width would tell you otherwise. Although I did used to think the continents floated on water, so when I heard about the Panama Canal I though North and South America were going to separate.

[WarpRulez]

There's an extremely easy refutation to the wall being the ONLY human-made construct visible from space. Just ask: "What about all the highways, runways, bridges, dams and other similar constructs that are significantly larged and wider? Why are they not visible but that thin wall is?"

[Dutchrebuild]

I like these short knowledge boosters Dan! Great stuff.

[SINTD_]

One time I had sunburn so bad that I may have been visible from space.

[thesunexpress]

Any number of open-pit surface mines are easily visible --- specifically because they look so unnatural.
The 3-Gorges damn in China is definitely visible, not only because of the massive body of water that has formed.
Large artificial island projects in the Middle-East really stand out.
China has a bunch of gigantic 10+ kilometer salt leeching production sites bordering the Gobi desert, which can be seen from space due to their bright blue / mint-green colored evaporation ponds.

[Slugsie]

I've always thought that if we could see the Great Wall, we'd also be able to see most motorways/freeways as they're much much wider usually.

[Annie_Annie__]

I remember reading that this “fact” came from people theorizing it, then stating it outright back before we’d ever been to space.

Once we had been to space it was so stuck in the public consciousness that it’s been difficult to correct.

I don’t remember where I heard that, though, and it’s 3am and I have a cold, so I don’t want to go hunting down it’s veracity.

[Rexarrian]

Hey, Dan. This is great mini series you have here. I really glad you have these, they are very entertaining, interesting and helpful. Thanks. Keep up the good work

[michaelschaedel]

I seem to remember being told the Great Wall of China was one of the few manmade objects visible from space.

The others being the pyramids of Egypt, and the panel gaps on a Land Rover🤣.

[MegaloTnt]

Tbh, I actually like these extra short vids that add a bit to the week

Great job!

[Elysium_the_Bard]

It seems almost intuitive to say that. But it's like saying that an exceptionally long egg noodle can be seen from a skyscraper, it's not about the length, but also the width and the depth/height.

[tankman]

I'm, in New Zealand and some times you can't even see us from space....well accounting to some USA maps 🤣

[Freeze]

Flevoland in the Netherlands, a human made "object", is visible from space with the naked eye even for the untrained eye. Granted you'd have to accept that reclaimed land is a human made object... :)

[chrisconnors]

One of the books my parents bought me when I was a kid addressed this (might have been the Tell Me Why series). At this point even Skylab hadn’t been built so they may have just been referring to what the Apollo astronauts could see when in space. The book did say it couldn’t be seen but it did say in places you could see how it affected the landscape, such as places where sand dunes built up on one side.

Those books and others like them that explained the hows and whys of many things to children and young teens were fantastic. I’m grateful for people who published them and my parents for buying them because it instilled in me a love of learning and an insatiable curiosity to know more even 5 decades later.

[TheDisabledGamersChannel]

I LOVE these short videos Dan, keep em coming buddy, great work.

[gravesclayton]

Wow, Dan. 5 vids in one week! Thanks, I like the short ones as much as the Tuesday/Friday regulars!

[martin.brandt]

The Great Wall closely follows the contours of the landscape. That makes spotting it especially difficult. One day I landed into Beijing. Had I not specifically been on the lookout, I would not even have recognized it from the descending plane at perhaps 3000 to 4000 meters.

[davidgodfrey]

I like these minis. Interesting & informative. Keep it up SciManDan

[DrBovdin]

As an addendum to the “human made objects visible from space” category, I would like to propose human made islands.
Take as an example the island Pepparholm/Peberholm that is part of the Öresund link between Skåne and Denmark, this is where the bridge bit of the link terminate and the tunnel bit starts (as seen coming from the Swedish side). The island is, if I remember correctly, close to 3 km long and for much of its length several hundred metres wide, so it should be quite visible from at least the ISS. The name of the island was of course given as a nod to the much larger, extremely flat and occasionally very flooded natural island Saltholm just north of the link. I am sure that there are other similar man made structures that are clearly resolvable for the naked eye from space.
However, I still am a bit sceptical to bridges themselves being _resolvable_ . You may be able to see that there is something there, but not what it is, that would be physically impossible (I have been designing bespoke optical microscopes and attachments for such for more than a decade, so I say this with some experience of optical imaging).
So much for the “only man made object” misconception.

[bobwalsh]

This is quickly becoming my new favorite segment on this channel, however I think you'd be doing yourself a huge service by making these shorts as well. Maybe run this video alongside a short with the same information. I've seen YouTube shorts in my suggestions more and more. Videos like this are great, but I think it'll get more coverage if you produce it in a variety of ways. Just an idea. Amazing work. Keep it up