The American flags planted by Apollo astronauts have likely bleached pure white after 50 years of unfiltered solar radiation, leaving the most famous banners in history standing as blank cloth

The American flags planted by Apollo astronauts have likely bleached pure white after 50 years of unfiltered solar radiation, leaving the most famous banners in history standing as blank cloth

The six American flags planted on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972 — beginning with the nylon banner Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong drove into the regolith at Tranquility Base — are almost certainly no longer red, white, and blue. After more than five decades of unfiltered ultraviolet light, hard solar wind, and temperature swings from roughly 120°C in lunar day to deep cold at night, the dyes have almost certainly broken down. What …