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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1124397
The flag was still there! Camera reveals American symbols endure on the moon 40 years later
All six Apollo missions to the lunar surface planted the Stars and Stripes during their fantastic voyages, but the flags’ fate has been a mystery — until now.
The iconic American flags planted by astronauts on the moon are still flying after more than four decades.
The most recent photos of the moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera show that the flags still exist — except the one planted by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin after they became the first humans to touch the lunar surface July 20, 1969.
"Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11, and it looks like he was correct!" LROC principal investigator Mark Robinson wrote in a blog post Friday.
Each of the six manned Apollo missions that touched down on the moon planted flags at their landing sites.
The flags were not meant to be symbolic of territorial claims. Instead, they were intended to signify "humanitarian accomplishment," Smithsonian curator Allan Needell told CBS News.
Scientists have long searched for proof that the flags survived after the final manned Apollo mission, Apollo 17, left the moon Dec. 14, 1972.
The LROC photos, which were taken at various times of the day and show rotating shadows around the points where the flags are believed to be, offer "convincing" evidence that the icons still exist, Robinson says.
It was feared the flags would be lost due to the rough lunar environment.
"Personally I was a bit surprised that the flags survived the harsh ultraviolet light and temperatures of the lunar surface, but they did," Robinson wrote. "What they look like is another question."
The moon experiences temperature swings from 242 degrees during the day to -280 degrees during the night, according to scientist James Fincannon of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
Annie Platoff, a librarian at the University of California who is currently studying the flags, said that the nylon icons were not meant to last forever.
"It was just to be there during the, the event — the landing and departing from the moon," Platoff told CBS. "We didn't have a requirement that the flag, the U.S. flag, had to withstand all the environments for eons."
The Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter, which launched in June 2009, has shown other astounding details of the Apollo landing sites, including lunar rover tracks and astronauts' boot prints.
The $540 million spacecraft is currently orbiting the moon on a mission that will extend to at least September 2012.
Photoshop
the flag is real.
its the moon thats fake.
Oh I see. You're saying the pictures are fakes! Got it.
They just think it's impossible because we had no real computers back then. They don't understand the power of a slide rule.
Holy ing . I just realized... It's pronounced "cosmo red." I've been saying it wrong in my head this whole time... like the past tense of "cosmor." Your capitalization in the thread le revealed it to me. My mind is blown.
It's not the spoon that bends, but your mind.
pssssssssst!
it's called "unmanned" spacecraft.
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