Visible from space

[odette]

A man-made object is visible from space. What is it?

[boru]

The Great Wall of China, or the christmas lights on the Griswalds house.

[jakesi]

The dome.

[domb]

If I were to be pedantic I would say that a number of satelites were visible in space. Oh, and Mir until this morning.

[odette]

great wall of china

[rekstout]

Quite a few things, The Great Wall is the only man-made structure visible from the moon. Off the top of my head the landing strip at Kennedy Space Centre is the only other one I am sure of (it is visible from orbit)

[Mad Ollie]

-> http://geography.about.com/od/specificplacesofinterest/a/gre atwall.htm For some reason, some urban legends tend to get stated and never disappear. This legend even appears as a erroneous Trivial Pursuit question. The legend? Many are familiar with the claim that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space or from the moon with the naked eye. This is simply not true. From a low orbit of the earth, many artificial objects are visible on the earth, such as highways, ships in the sea, railroads, cities, fields of crops, and even some individual buildings. While at a low orbit, the Great Wall of China can certainly be seen from space but it is not unique in that regard. However, when leaving the earth's orbit and acquiring an altitude of more than a few thousand miles, no man-made objects are visible at all. NASA says, "The Great Wall can barely be seen from the Shuttle, so it would not be possible to see it from the Moon with the naked eye." Thus, it'd be tough to spot the Great Wall of China or any other object from the moon. Furthermore, from the moon, even the continents are barely visible. Regarding the origination of the story The Straight Dope's pundit Cecil Adams says, "Nobody knows exactly where the story got started, although some think it was speculation by some bigshot during an after-dinner speech in the early days of the space program."