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
