Sunday, January 27, 2013

American Flags Fading on the Moon


Image of an American flag from the moon's surface during the Apollo missions

During each Apollo mission that made it to the moon, the astronauts  left behind an American flag. Each was attached to a poll, and designed to wave horizontally in the low gravity environment. Astronomers have been studying these flags over the years using moon orbiting satellites to take photos of them. Even though they are not able to resolve the flag in the images, they can see a color difference in the photo where the flags sit. In more recent photos, astronomers have noticed that the flags appear a little brighter than they expected. Why is this? They think that the flags are fading, big time! If you've ever flown a flag outside and left it out all summer long, then you might have noticed that the colors look a little less bright over time. Now imagine this same flag on the moon, where there is little to no atmosphere to protect the flags from being bombarded by harmful UV radiation. It's likely that the sun has not only faded these flags but sun-bleached them white! Regardless of what they look like today, they are still a symbols of the fantastic accomplishment of landing man on the moon. 

Image Credit: NASA/Apollo Mission