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DW (English)
  • 12/11/2023
Contrary to what photos taken by Apollo astronauts suggest, stars are indeed visible from the moon. But they appear differently to what they do here on Earth.
Transcript
00:00 Can you see the stars from the surface of the moon?
00:07 On a clear night here on Earth, the sky is littered with countless stars.
00:14 But if we're in a big city, we only see a few because our surroundings are too bright.
00:22 It's the same when there's a full moon and its light outshines everything else.
00:30 If we're in a dark place, on the other hand, we see many stars twinkling.
00:36 That twinkling is caused by the Earth's atmosphere.
00:40 When the starlight passes through the atmosphere, it hits layers of different temperatures and is diffracted.
00:48 The moon has no atmosphere. That means the light of the sun shines unhindered on the lunar surface, illuminating it brightly.
00:57 But areas in shadow remain extremely dark.
01:03 Historical footage of manned missions to the moon show the Apollo astronauts against the backdrop of a black sky.
01:11 A sky without stars?
01:13 That raised questions about whether the astronauts had really been to the moon, or whether the whole thing was staged.
01:22 Much later, the Kaguya space probe also showed a black sky.
01:27 It's simply because the Earth and the surface of the moon are so bright that the cameras couldn't pick up the stars.
01:34 Just like in the city, when most of the stars are no longer visible.
01:41 In 1972, astronauts on the Apollo 16 mission photographed the Earth and the sky from the moon in ultraviolet light.
01:50 Their images are littered with bright dots, or stars, so they can be seen from the moon.
01:57 And you actually have an unobstructed view of them.
02:01 Just like on the International Space Station, which floats above the Earth's atmosphere.
02:06 That's why the stars don't appear to twinkle, like they do down here, on Earth.
02:12 [BIRDS CHIRPING]

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