Is the US flag still on the moon?
Mia Lopez
Updated on March 10, 2026
Images taken by a Nasa spacecraft show that the American flags planted in the Moon's soil by Apollo astronauts are mostly still standing. The photos from Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) show the flags are still casting shadows - except the one planted during the Apollo 11 mission.
Is the American flag still on the moon 2020?
Images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have shown that the American flags left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts are still standing– except for the Apollo 11 mission, which Buzz Aldrin reported as being knocked over by engine exhaust as Apollo 11 lifted off.How long will the flag on the moon last?
This means the flags planted by the Apollo astronauts are exposed to constant, glaring sunlight and solar radiation for two-week stretches at a time, since one "day" on the moon lasts about 27 Earth days.How many American flags are on the moon currently?
There are six U.S. flags on the moon planted by the Apollo astronauts (Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17).Where is the American flag that was on the moon?
The flag deployed during Apollo 17 has a unique history. It traveled to the Moon and back on Apollo 11, and hung on the wall of Mission Control afterwards. On the first day of the mission, Gene Cernan erected it in Taurus–Littrow lunar valley.Are the flags left on the moon still there?
Who owns the Moon?
The short answer is that no one owns the Moon. That's because of a piece of international law. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, put forward by the United Nations, says that space belongs to no one country.Can the flag on the Moon be seen from Earth?
Yes, the flag is still on the moon, but you can't see it using a telescope. I found some statistics on the size of lunar equipment in a Press Kit for the Apollo 16 mission. The flag is 125 cm (4 feet) long, and you would need an optical wavelength telescope around 200 meters (~650 feet) in diameter to see it.Did China go to the Moon?
Chang'e 3, launched on 2 December 2013 aboard a Long March 3B rocket, landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013. It carried with it a 140 kilograms (310 pounds) lunar rover named Yutu, which was designed to explore an area of 3 square kilometers (1.2 square miles) during a 3-month mission.What was left on the Moon?
Besides the 2019 Chinese rover Yutu-2, the only artificial objects on the Moon that are still in use are the retroreflectors for the lunar laser ranging experiments left there by the Apollo 11, 14, and 15 astronauts, and by the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2 missions.Is Eagle still orbiting the Moon?
After the crew re-boarded Columbia, the Eagle was abandoned in lunar orbit. Although its ultimate fate remains unknown, some calculations by the physicist James Meador published in 2021 showed that Eagle could theoretically still be in lunar orbit.Will footprints on the Moon last forever?
"They won't be there forever," Mark Robinson, an Arizona State University scientist and the principal investigator of LRO's camera, said in a news briefing today. "The moon is constantly bombarded with micrometeorites. These are very, very small particles that impact at very high velocities."What countries have a flag on the Moon?
China becomes second nation to plant flag on the Moon
- China has planted its flag on the Moon, more than 50 years after the US first planted the Stars and Stripes there.
- The pictures from China's National Space Administration show the five-starred Red Flag holding still on the windless lunar surface.