Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Flag Day, Tuesday, June 14th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 9:28.   The moon, 1 day before full, will set at 5:35 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 5:56

Whatever happened to the flags left on the moon by the Apollo astronauts?  Forty or so years after the landings the sun’s harsh unfiltered light, especially in the ultraviolet has bleached and degraded the nylon fabric of the flags.  Also the lunar soil, called regolith contains small jagged particles that are very compact and hard to pound a flag pole in.  Apparently the flags of all but Apollo 11 and 15 are still standing, while the rocket blast of the lunar module ascent stage blew down the other two.  The flag of the United States is carried on two spacecraft that are about to leave the magnetic bubble around the sun that is the heliosphere.  The farthest, Voyager 1 is 117 times the earth’s distance from the sun, nearly 11 billion miles away.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.