BBeach said:
What is the altitute of the people taking the pictures? Cruise missiles are usually 20 feet long or so, plus look at the wings, those are two short to be for a conventional plane. The scale is going to be different if the object isnt at ground level.
1. I take a picture of you on my Polaroid.
2. You walk to half that distance away from my camera.
3. I take another picture of you.
RESULT: On the 2nd Polaroid, you're twice as tall.
Other ratios also work. For example, 1:5.
The satellite is at a minimum altitude of 200 km. Low Earth Orbit bottoms out at 200km, which is the lowest such a satellite would fly at. For a 20 ft long object to appear as if it were 100 ft long on the surface of the Earth, it would have to be 1/5th distance away from the satellite. Every fifth of 200 km is 40 km.
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If a 20ft long object is 40 km away, but the Earth's surface is 200 km away, then the 20ft long object appears to be 100 ft long.
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200 km - 40 km = 160 km (two-hundred minus forty equals one hundred sixty)
Does the Tomohawk reach 160 km altitude? Let me say this very slowly: 160 km is 100 miles up, >500,000 ft in altitude. Can a cruise missile fly up 100 miles high?
At that altitude its engine doesn't operate. It's wings won't produce enough lift.
but there's more!
The satellite could very well be flying at 800 km. This would indicate the cruise missile is flying at 640 km (actually also in LEO). Our 20ft missile would have to be in ORBIT to appear to be 5x longer.