NASA

O say, yes, NASA can see. Today the space agency released new data from its lunar orbiter showing that 40 years after the Apollo missions, the American flags the astronauts planted on the moon are still there.

As Phil Plait explains at Bad Astronomy, it had been a bit of a mystery whether the six star-spangled banners left behind on the lunar surface would survive the harsh temperatures and radiation they would endure over four decades. They're just simple nylon, after all.

Back in 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the location of one of the left-behind banners. But the pictures didn't have sufficiently sharp resolution to show that the flag was still there. The new LRO images show the shadows that the flags cast upon the moon's surface—good evidence that they're still around after all this time (though they may have lost their stripes, so it might be a bland old flag up there).

All are still around but the first one, that is. Buzz Aldrin always said that the Apollo 11 flag blew over when he and Neil Armstrong took off from the lunar surface. It would appear Buzz was correct: LRO has shown that all the Apollo flags except for 11's endure.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io