The education ministry has ordered the publisher of the sixth-grade textbook to delete the line propagating the idea that the Great Wall can be seen from a spacecraft orbiting Earth, the Xinhua news agency said on its website.

The textbook has been part of the curriculum for tens of millions of Chinese, giving rise to a popular notion which has also found adherents abroad.

This, however, was denied by the first Chinese in orbit, Yang Liwei, who said he had not been able to spot China's most famous structure during his 21 hours is orbit.

"The scenery was very beautiful," Yang said in a televised interview. "But I didn't see the Great Wall."

In a possible added complication of the issue, US astronaut Gene Cernan was quoted in Singapore's Straits Times over the weekend as saying that he, for one, had indeed seen the Great Wall from outer space.

SPACE.WIRE