New York's iconic, blue-green statue of liberty wasn't always green.

 

纽约的标志性蓝绿色自由女神像并不一直都是绿色的。
 

 

When the statue was gifted to the US from France in 1885, she was actually a shiny copper¹ color.

 

A new video reveals the chemical reactions involving oxygen and even air pollution that led to her color change from copper to liberty green.

 

The statue of liberty was a gift from France to the US as a way of commemorating² the US's fight for independence, as well as their own aspiration³ for democracy.

 

A video, published by the American Chemical Society, explains that the 305-foot (93 meter) statue was built over nine years in sections of copper skin on top of an iron skeleton.

 

According to the National Park Service, the statue is made of thirty tons of copper - enough to make 435 million pennies.

 

'In her first few decades in the Big Apple, the statue slowly turned from that shiny copper color to a dull brown and the, finally, to the blue-green, or as they'd say back in France, 'verdigris⁴' we see today,' said the video's narrator.

 

When it changed color, some officials suggested restoring her back to her original color, but after the public protested against this decision, she was left the way she is.

 

The statue's color change was as a result of oxidation reactions between copper and the air.

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