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Robert Walker

No, it couldn’t even take a photograph of it at the distance of the Moon. The ISS would span a couple of pixels at the distance of the Moon at maximum resolution. The things it does photograph are either very large or very bright. For instance Hubble’s highest resolution image of Mars is this one

Taken from a distance of 55,760,220 km NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Close-up of the Red Planet, Mars It has a resolution of about 4.5 km per pixel.

Voyager is currently 16.7 billion kilometers away Where are the Voyagers

At that distance, a similar image to the image of Mars by Hubble would have one pixel span around 1,350 km.

The only way it could spot Voyager was if it sent out a beam of light, say a laser beam. But Voyager communicates via radio signals. It’s bright enough to communicate with it if you look at it in the appropriate part of the radio spectrum.

That’s in our solar system. I know Hubble does many images of deep sky objects but they are absolutely ginormous the ones that are visually more than one pixel.

About the Author

Robert Walker

Robert Walker

Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.
Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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