Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Photographs The U.S. Flag at Apollo 17 Site

[Ian David]

… and the flag was still there


This is very, very cool: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, currently orbiting the Moon just 50 km off the surface, has taken more shots of the Apollo 17 landing site… and has seen the actual U.S. flag!



<snip>

Well, lookit that! It’s fuzzy and small and hard to be sure it’s the flag in the picture, but there it is. It does match maps made of the Apollo 17 landing site, so it’s definitely the flagpole we’re seeing there.

Cooool.

Compare this picture to that taken by the 16mm movie camera on the Ascent Module right after Apollo 17 lifted off the Moon; you can see many of the same features. I a minutes looking for the rover in the LRO picture, then remembered that the astronauts moved it well off to one side, about 100 meters, before they left the Moon so that the video camera on board could record their ascent (it was remotely controlled from Earth by an operator named Ed Fendell, who had tried to film the launch of Apollo 15’s and 16’s Ascent Module but missed; with 17 he made it, and that’s the movie you always see in documentaries). However, you can see it in this larger overview from LRO:



Incredible. The LRO page on this has more details, including comparisons of the images from LRO to ones taken in situ from Apollo 17. Remember too that these LRO images have a resolution of 50 cm (18 inches) per pixel!

More:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/10/30/and-the-flag-was-still-there/

Hat-tip to: http://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/5288309586

[create.peace]

1. I suppose they suspended flag etiquette and it isn't lighted! nt

[Ian David]

3. Those unpatriotic flag-desecrating bastards! n/t

[TCJ70]

2. Pfffft...we didn't land on the moon! n/t

[Ikonoklast]

4. Nice pic...

...of the desert in New Mexico.








:popcorn:

[FarCenter]

5. Flag added by photoshop

[Ikonoklast]

7. If you look really, really closely, you can see the edges are pixellated.

Only smart people can see this.








:9

[bikebloke]

6. You'd think someone would've knicked it by now.

[Octafish]

8. Salute to NASA and the Apollo 17 mission.

I shook Eugene Cernan's hand when he visited Detroit a few years back.

The Captain was a childhood hero of mine -- from his Gemini IX spacewalking days.

Thanks for the heads-up, Ian David!

[Oregone]

9. Accompanying the flag on foreign lands is the ever familiar bombs