The Great Wall from the Moon: not so fast

The Great Wall of China. So enormous, people say you can see it from the Moon.

Gaston: From the Moon! I have seen it myself!, In a photo. Of the Moon.

Pip: So you saw, the Moon.

From the Moon, about three hundred and eighty-four thousand kilometres away, the wall would look as thin as a human hair seen from three kilometres away.

The Wolf: Invisible.

And it isn't even one wall. It's thousands of separate sections, built by different dynasties over centuries,

from packed earth on the plains and stone in the mountains.

The famous brick stretches with watchtowers were built by the Ming dynasty.

Gaston: But someone said you could see it from the Moon!

One of the earliest claims appears in a letter written in seventeen fifty-four, by an English antiquary.

The Wolf: Two hundred years before anyone went to the Moon.