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Forum:	Free Space
Topic:	Great Barrier Reef visible from the Moon

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Your Reply: HTML is ON UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	[QUOTE]Originally posted by FFrench: [B]I suspect this is like those "Great Wall of China" stories where original statements get exaggerated and stretched into new directions. In this case, I suspect this is a stretching of a statement I have read. That some scientists consider the Great Barrier Reef to be not only the planet's largest living structure, but also the planet's largest living organism. This would therefore make it the only individual living thing visible from Earth orbit without magnification. By what definition these scientists consider a coral reef to be a single organism and not a colony of organisms, I am not sure. For example, many forests can be seen from space, and in terms of mutually supportive ecosystems would seem to have much in common with coral reefs - and yet a forest is not considered to be a single organism. Perhaps there are some marine biologists out there who can enlighten us?[/B][/QUOTE]
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<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="600"><TR><td bgcolor="#000000"><TABLE BORDER=0 cellpadding=4 border=0 cellspacing=1 WIDTH="100%"><TR bgcolor="#660000"><TD COLSPAN=2><CENTER>T O P I C     R E V I E W</CENTER></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>silex</TD><TD>I saw a video documentary about the Great Barrier Reef, near Queensland. It said the reef is visible from the moon.Can anyone tell me who reported seeing it from the moon first?Any photos of it from the moon?thanks Silex </TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>Robert Pearlman</TD><TD>Frommer's Portable Australia's Great Barrier Reef includes this citation on its first page: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>It's the only living thing on earth visible from the moon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Other resources have similar statements but none ever cite any specific astronauts seeing the reef.It may be that none of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing the reef, but rather given its known size, that it can be calculated that it should be visible from the Moon.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>MCroft04</TD><TD> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Robert Pearlman: It may be that none of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing the reef, but rather given its known size, that it can be calculated that it should be visible from the Moon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Is it possible that photographs taken from the moon and from lunar orbit show the reef? Perhaps the astronauts did not actually see the reef, but their photographs show it?</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>silex</TD><TD>The quote from the book is very similar to the statement made in the doco, that it IS visible from the moon.It makes me think that the statement sounds like it is based on an observation from the moon, whereas if they were assuming or calculating, I would expect them to say something like it would be or could be or should be visible, instead of it is visible.However, I tend to agree that maybe none of the moonwalkers saw it. It's just that the wording makes it sound so positive, if you understand what I mean.Regards Silex.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>Rodina</TD><TD>It certainly is the case that you can see shallow - as opposed to deep - water from space, and since much of the reef is packed with shallow water spaces, it has to be pretty easy to make out the general outlines of where it is.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>FFrench</TD><TD>I suspect this is like those "Great Wall of China" stories where original statements get exaggerated and stretched into new directions.In this case, I suspect this is a stretching of a statement I have read. That some scientists consider the Great Barrier Reef to be not only the planet's largest living structure, but also the planet's largest living organism. This would therefore make it the only individual living thing visible from Earth orbit without magnification. By what definition these scientists consider a coral reef to be a single organism and not a colony of organisms, I am not sure. For example, many forests can be seen from space, and in terms of mutually supportive ecosystems would seem to have much in common with coral reefs - and yet a forest is not considered to be a single organism. Perhaps there are some marine biologists out there who can enlighten us?</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>MCroft04</TD><TD>In this month's Smithsonian Magazine, on page 93 it reads that the Australian government notes that it (the Great Barrier Reef) is "the only living organic collective visible from Earth's orbit". The source is not cited.</TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>Robert Pearlman</TD><TD>Robert Yowell, who, himself, is soon on his way to Australia, read this thread and thought to search the Apollo air to ground transcripts for mention of the Great Barrier Reef.Sure enough, it does come up in conversation during Apollo 15 between the mission control and Endeavour. As Robert wrote, "I imagine that if someone had been listening at the time, and not knowing the context of what they were hearing, they would mistakenly think the astronauts had witnessed this event!"... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>193:02:17 Capcom Allen: I'm going to go on, if you're still listening, to read some history that was sent to us by the Honeysuckle people. And the subject is "A Leak on the Endeavour at 62 hundred GET." Following the above incident and the wonder from the Apollo 15 crew whether Captain Cook's Endeavour had ever sprung a leak, the staff at Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station has searched the records and come up with the following incident, which may be of interest. Information has been extracted from an old newspaper article and an entry in Captain Cook's log book. "It was 11 p.m. on June 11, 1770, a clear moonlit night, when His Majesty's Ship, Endeavour, under the command of Captain James Cook, sailed serenely under fully furled sail within the waters of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's northeast coast. Then disaster struck. The ship had got upon the edge of a reef of coral rocks which lay to the northwest of having come in places [sic] run the ship 3 or 4 fathoms and in others about as many feet." And I'm quoting James Cook's diary here. "But about a hundred feet from her starboard side, she, laying with her head to the northeast were 7, 8, and 10 fathoms." With a grind and a roar, the Endeavour rose in the bow, and came down hard. Empty water. Casks broke their lashings and lay in a tangle with the rigging on the deck. The captain, clad only in drawers, which I guess is a Constant Wear Garment, rushed on deck. He summoned all hands to the pumps, and ordered all unnecessary stores to be thrown overboard. Such items as iron, and stone ballast from deep in the hole, casks, hoops, stays, oil jars, decayed stores, and then six cannons, which fired 4-pound shot. (Probably one cannon to fire long, one cannon to fire short and two to fire for effect.) These, in fact, are the cannons discovered in 1969, off the coast of northeastern Australia by a team from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science. And, after restoration, one each was presented by the Australian - to - by the Australian government to the U.S., British, and to New Zealand. The remaining three cannons are in Australia. The original Endeavour was finally freed from the reef by means of oakum and wool, wrapped in a sail, being sunk under the ship and plugged into the hole in hope that it would be sucked into the leak and would close the leak. The experiment was entirely successful and, I quote again, from Cook's diary, "In about a quarter of an hour to our great surprise, the ship was pumped dry and upon letting the pumps stand, she was found to make very little water." Subsequently, the Endeavour arrived at the Australian mainland, the landing place is now called Cooktown, by the way, and after two months the damage had been repaired and the ship returned to England. And that's the end of your history lesson for today. Over.193:05:43 Scott: That's quite an analogy, isn't it.193:05:48 Allen: Quite an analogy, Dave. Certainly is.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top>Philip</TD><TD>Too bad is not so visible for ships passing near it and many early explorers ran 'ashore' on the GBR <IMG SRC="http://collectspace.com/ubb/wink.gif"></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#333333"><TD valign=top>MCroft04</TD><TD>I'm reading Belknap's Waterproof Grand Canyon River Guide in preparation for a May rafting trip, and in the Natural History section it has a picture of a flowering Newberry's Yucca plant, and goes on to state that "Towering stalk sometimes visible from space". I'll accept that the Great Barrier Reef can be seen from space, but I'm a bit skeptical about Yucca plants. </TD></TR></TABLE></td></tr></table>

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