OK, so you probably first learned about The Great Wall of China in elementary school.
If you did, you know that the idea emerged in the third century B.C. as a means of preventing barbarian nomads from entering China.
And it's very likely that your good ol' teacher also told you that it's the only human-made object visible from space AND the moon.
Welllllll, at the ripe age of 24, I learned that my teacher, Mr. P, was in fact, a liar liar pants on fire because that's actually NOT true!
Guys, it's preeetty hard to view The Great Wall of China from space. You have to use a high-powered lens, and even then you can't really make it out from the rivers and mountains surrounding it. LOOK AT THE ARROWS! They're pointing to sections of the wall that ARE VISIBLE, but can you even see anything?!
Soooo if the wall can barely be seen from a low orbit, it's definitely NOT VISIBLE from the moon! I CAN'T EVEN LOCATE IT IN THIS PICTURE!!!
Oh, and China also put an end to the myth themselves in 2004 when their astronaut, Yang Liwei, noted that he couldn't spot the structure from his spacecraft. His testimony even got China's Ministry of Education to re-write elementary school textbooks.
