How do we have the equipment to picture and see cosmos and stars millions of light years away, but can’t just zoom-in to examine and view the surfaces of our interplanetary planets in the solar system?
In: Physics
Very simply it’s because there’s no zoom, the light come to the lens, stars have lights, planets are dark.
I did an astronomy experiment with my five year old yesterday. I calculated the scale of the sun and planets if the sun was 18 inches in diameter. We put the sun in front of our house and drew it in chalk. We then walked to where each planet was and drew it on the sidewalk in chalk. Jupiter was 2.5 inches in diameter at 1350 feet. Pluto ( I know) is 0.05 inches in diameter at 2 miles. When we walk that far out and look at that circle my son just drew, I wonder how even Hubble can get one pixel of Pluto.
Comparing distant galaxies to nearby planets is like comparing distant mountains to a grain of sand on your outstretched finger tip.
Distant galaxies are much larger than the planets are close.
Most of the pictures you see of stars “millions of light years away” is just photoshops or artists renditions on how they might look.
Or enhance. Why cant we enhance?
Simple answer : planets far far away are pretty dim, which makes the quality of the photos extremely crappy
Angular resolution. Plus the objects you are observing at great distances are much larger and brighter than something up close.
Here’s [Andromeda galaxy from earth](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rSOshtvq0MA/UsYIfoBuzDI/AAAAAAAANLg/lxJyCNHHcAI/s640/andromeda+if+visible.jpg), actual size/scale, just added brightness. Here’s a [bunch of planets from Earth](https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960×0/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fstartswithabang%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F04%2F4111f2d8bf9afe777d5d5dd1cb288e10.jpg) in a night sky photograph.
The planets in our solar system are much closer, but they’re also smaller by an even greater factor than they are closer. Therefore they are even smaller in the sky from earth than the cosmic objects that we *can* image. The limit in both cases is resolution, and there’s no contradiction.
Your question is : “if we can take a picture of the big thing, why can’t we take a picture of the small thing?” Answer: because they are smaller.
Yes planets are dimmer than stars, but you can see those planets in the night sky with your eyes, and you can’t see Andromeda. Brightness isn’t the limiting factor, resolution is.
There’s a limit to how far you can zoom as the planets get smaller and smaller and quality depends on what camera you are using to take the picture.
With camera technology, the lens is rounded so you can take a wide picture. And as you zoom out the lens opens up to capture a great picture. When you take a video you are taking many pictures at once kind of like a gif or stop motion that is compiled together.
Most of the equipment has to be made from raw materials that are molded, sautered, stamped, programs loaded, etc., so they take a great deal of time and precision engineering to manufacture. Higher end stuff tends to have a better quality control from start to finish and every factory has their own sets of items they use to create items from scratch or globally sourced products.
I worked in a factory where quality control was really high.
The cameras of today are so advanced but the real deal is that nasa is using infared ones for the james webb telescope and they plan to see into other galaxies and view the surface of planets too with it. This new telescope, has infared wavelengths that are from 0.6 to 5 microns in size.
[https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/nircam.html](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/nircam.html)
The james webb telescope has gold plated mirrors for light enhancement and a coronagraph which is a piece of technology that can take a picture of a distant object with bright light behind it and you can shield the bright light to get a better picture of the distant object. Sort of like how you put your hand up to block the sun so you can see something.
Scale due to Distance.
You can take a moderately good picture of Jupiter or Saturn or Venus from Earth. But trigonometry mandates that you get less resolution the further something is away. Example: You can clearly see your thumbnail, but may have trouble distinguishing the thumb of a person down the street. The farther something is away, then the fewer pixels/receptors catching its photons. Those cosmic things you see in pictures are massive stars, nebulae, galaxies, and clusters, which are many orders of magnitude larger than a planet.
A great example of this is happening right now. Wake up just before sunrise tomorrow (in July 2020) and go outside to see Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter (and some of its Galilean moons) stretched across the sky. The are all brighter than the stars (which are in our own galaxy). In that same sky are many many many galaxies and nebulae and other wonders that are so far away that they seem relatively microbial in size (as well as being fairly red-shifted).
To be fair, there are now some pretty awesome pictures of the local planets.
[Mercury](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/mercury.jpg) [Venus](https://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Venus-imaged-by-Magellan.jpg) [Mars](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/683_6453_mars-globe-valles-marineris-enhanced-full2.jpg) [Jupiter](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/images/wallpaper/PIA07784-1920×1200.jpg) [Saturn](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/17549_Saturn_Glutton_For_Punishment_Mosaic_Watermark.jpg) [Uranus](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/potw1714a.jpg) [Neptune](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/images/wallpaper/PIA02245-1920×1200.jpg) … and even [Pluto](https://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/wp-content/uploads/sites/253/2015/12/PressImageContext_12-10-15.jpg)
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