Resolving Earth and the Moon as seen from Venus

[Warped]

When I am orbiting Venus in Orbiter (of course:lol I can see the Earth and the Moon as two distinctive dots. What I am wondering is:

Could you resolve the Earth and the Moon as two distinctive Entities from Venus? (from above the clouds)

If so, how many arc-seconds would they be apart from one another if the Earth and the Moon and Venus were set up in a triangle configuration? what would it look like at opposition and conjunction?

How far away from the Earth and the Moon would you have to be for them to blend into a single point of light?

(I used search in case you're wondering)

 

[TSPenguin]

(I used search in case you're wondering)

And you did well. This has not been asked before. Yet, it is a very interesting question! Thanks for asking it :thumbup:

 

[Andy44]

I would think so. Luna is one of the larger moons in the Solar System, big enough to be a planet in its own right if it were orbiting the sun instead of Earth.

As for resolving the two as separate dots, my hunch is "yes", but I haven't done the math. It should be easy enough to figure out, though.

 

[BrianJ]

Wikipedia says the resolving power of the human eye is ~0.02deg.
So, assuming the Earth-Moon line is perpendicular to the line of sight, and the Earth-Moon distance is ~400,000km, then the maximum distance that you could see them as two seperate objects is (roughly)
400000km/sin(0.02) ~ 1145915613km ~ 7.6AU

Since Venus' orbit radius is less than 1AU, then the furthest it can be from Earth is less than 2AU - so you should always be able to see the Earth and Moon as seperate objects from Venus (except when the Sun is in the way, or the Moon and Earth are both close to the line of sight, of course