It’s one of the most often asked questions I get, while showing off the Moon to the public. “Can you see the flag the astronauts left there?”

This then leads to a discussion on how far the Moon is, versus the difficulty of seeing a 1.5 by 0.9 meter flag at such a distance. My scope is good, but not that good.

During the US Apollo program, six crewed missions landed on the Moon starting with Apollo 11 in 1969, leaving a like number of flags. Now, China recently announced that one more flag will join the collection in late 2026, when Chang’e 7 heads to the Moon.