Telescopes on certain commercial surveillance satellites can resolve objects on the surface Earth sizes as small as 85 cm, while telescopes on military surveillance systems can resolve objects on the Earth's surface of sizes as small as 10 cm. Suppose that the resolution limit is determined by Rayleigh's criterion and is not affected turbulence in the atmosphere, that the satellites are at an altitude of 400 km and that the of visible light is 550 nm,
Telescopes on certain commercial surveillance satellites can resolve objects on the surface
Earth sizes as small as 85 cm, while telescopes on military surveillance systems can resolve objects on the Earth's surface of sizes as small as 10 cm. Suppose that the resolution limit is determined by Rayleigh's criterion and is not affected turbulence in the atmosphere, that the satellites are at an altitude of 400 km and that the of visible light is 550 nm, calculate the diameter of the telescope aperture that would be needed to solve a) 85 cm and (b) 10 cm. (c) Now, considering that turbulence does affect the resolution and that the diameter of the Hubble Space Telescope is 2.4 m, what can you say about the answer to question (b) and how the resolution of military surveillance systems can be achieved?
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