The belief is widespread that the famous monument of Chinese fortification is easily distinguished even from a very high height. We checked whether this is really so.

The Great Chinese Wall is one of the main attractions of China, Entered On the UNESCO World Heritage List, and in 2007 a complex of defensive structures Entered Among the seven new wonders of the world. The total wall length It is About 20,000 km, so it is not surprising to the emergence of statements that it is supposedly visible with the naked gaze from the cosmos. Some even clarify that the wall is visible not just from the cosmos, but from the surface of the moon. Messages of both types can be found, in particular, in publications in Facebook And "VKontakte". In the form of actual statements or unconfirmed rumors, stories about the monument visible from space can be found even in textbooks And thematic publications About the Middle Kingdom.

Let's start with the statement that the great Chinese wall is visible from the moon. American astronaut Alan bin, who went to the surface of the satellite, I remembered: “All that you see from the moon is a beautiful sphere, mainly white (clouds), in places blue (ocean) and yellow (deserts), from time to time you see green vegetation. From such a distance, not a single man -made object is visible. In fact, when you only leave the orbit and are several thousand miles from the ground, no man -made objects are no longer visible. ”

Although the version of the statement with the wording “can be seen from the cosmos” is much less concrete, we can consider the correctness of this statement relative to the near -Earth orbit. The photographs available on the websites of space agencies refute at least the exclusivity of the great Chinese wall: there is NASA on the NAS website chapter with images of UNESCO monuments, and on the website of Roscosmos - selection With landscapes of the cities of the Golden Ring.

As for the very opportunity to see this famous defensive structure from space, as experts assure, it all depends on weather conditions and illumination. So, a participant in five space flights Jeffrey Hoffman claimsthat "he looked at the Earth from the cosmos, including during numerous flights over China, but never saw the walls." In his opinion, this is due to the perception of the human eye - the wall merges with the environment, so we can distinguish either it, for example, the pyramids in Giza with ease and without special equipment (unlike roads or rivers).

The fact that the uniqueness of the monument was also manifested in its exceptional visibility from the cosmos was a long time as the subject of pride in China. For obvious reasons, American astronauts were distrusted there, although the first taiconaut (as Cosmonauts are called in the Middle Kingdom) Jan Livey agreed With your colleagues. In 2004, astronaut Leroy Chiao did A photograph of the area north of Beijing, on which the Great Chinese wall is barely distinguishable. In 2006, Taikonauts Fei Zyunlun and Neshen after returning from orbit They saidthat they did not see a defensive structure from the cosmos and that it is indistinguishable from other buildings. However, in the same year, a professor at the Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Wei Chentsze doubted In these words: “We need to conduct more tests and improve the preparation of taiconauts. Some of them said that they did not see her, but this does not mean that she was not there. ”

Although the Chinese did not trust the evidence of American astronauts, for the first time the statement about the visibility of the great Chinese wall from space appeared in the United States. In 1938, Richard Halliberton in his “Second Book of Miracles (East)” He wrote: “Astronomers say that the Great Chinese Wall is the only man -made object on our planet, which is visible to the naked eye from the moon.” How claims David Mikkelson from the Snopes factory project, Halliberton is difficult to consider an authoritative author - "he was not averse to composing fables to captivate the audience, but he himself was not the creator of a factual, although, undoubtedly, he contributed to his widespread widespread." Even earlier mention of the legend that managed to find - published at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, Henry Norman's book “People and Politics of the Far East”, in which the author Writes: “In addition to its age, it (the Great Chinese Wall. - Approx. Ed.) Uses a reputation as the only man -made object on Earth, which is visible from the moon.” What such a “reputation” was reinforced several decades before the first flights to the moon, you can only guess.