Old NASA Visuals Falsely Peddled as Videos Captured by ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3

NASA confirmed to The Quint that the video shows visuals of Mars captured by Mars Opportunity Rover in 2017.

Khushi Mehrotra
WebQoof
Published:
<div class="paragraphs"><p>Fact-Check: These videos are unrelated and does not show the moon as captured by ISRO's Chandrayaan-3.&nbsp;</p></div>
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Fact-Check: These videos are unrelated and does not show the moon as captured by ISRO's Chandrayaan-3. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

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A set of two videos are going viral on social media to claim that they show the moon's surface as captured by the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3.

An archive of the post can be found here

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot) 

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here. We also received a query about this on our WhatsApp tipline.)

What is the truth?: Both these videos do not show the surface of the moon nor was it captured by Chandrayaan-3.

  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) confirmed to The Quint that one of the videos is from their Mars Opportunity Rover project and dates back to 2007.

  • The second video is also from a NASA project namely, the Mars Curiosity Rover from 2014.

How did we find out?: On conducting a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video, we came across a similar picture on NASA's MARS Exploration Rovers Mission website dated 29 April 2007.

VIDEO 1

  • We found out that this image is related to Mars Opportunity Rover and it shows Mars' surface.

  • The rover was assessing a directional technique called "Field D-star" which helps the rover to outline optimum long-range drives around the hurdles.

The link to this information is here

(Source: NASA/Screenshot)

  • We compared the keyframes of the viral video with the picture on the NASA website and found similarities.

    (Swipe right to see the comparison.)

  • The Quint reached out to NASA's social media manager, Stephanie L Smith who further confirmed that the viral video was a pan across the “D-Star Panorama” from the Opportunity Mars rover.

  • She also said, "Someone has added wind sound effects that were not gathered on Mars."

VIDEO 2

  • On NASA's website, we came across the same picture as the viral video dated June 2014.

  • The image was of the Mars Curiosity Rover project which was taken at the "Windjana Drilling Site."

Here is the link to the information about this project. 

(Source: NASA/Screenshot)

  • We compared a key frame from the viral video with the original image and found major similarities.

Here is a comparison between the viral image and the original image. 

(Source: Facebook/Nasa/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

  • BBC reported on the Curiosity Rover's achievements on 13 April 2015 and used this picture in their story.

  • It mentioned that evidence for liquid water has been gathered on Mars.

  • Additionally, we did not find any such visuals posted by ISRO's official social media handles or website.

Conclusion: Clearly, both these videos are old and unrelated to ISRO's Chandrayaan-3.

(Note: The story has been updated to add NASA's comment and also add one more similar claim.)

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