Fact-Check: Old Stock Video Shared as Visuals of Moon Captured by Chandrayaan-3

We found that the viral video dates back to December 2020, years before the launch of ISRO's Chandrayaan-3.

As India prepares itself for the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon on 23 August, a video is being shared to claim that it shows stunning visuals of the moon that were captured by ISRO's recent Indian lunar exploration mission.

The video had recorded more than 3,90,000 views on X (formerly Twitter) at the time of writing this report. You can view other archives of similar posts here, here, and here.

Are these claims true?: Neither the video is recent nor is it related to Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3. It dates back to December 2020 and shows an animated close-up of the moon in motion.

How did we find out?: We extracted several keyframes from the viral video using Google Chrome extension InVID WeVerify and performed a reverse image search on them.

• We came across an image uploaded on IStock Photo which looked similar to the viral video.

• The image was uploaded on 3 December 2020 and was captioned, "Textured surface of the moon close-up in motion. 3d illustration. Elements of this image furnished by NASA stock photo."

• On comparing a keyframe from the viral video and the stock image, we found that the visuals were laterally inverted to each other.

• We searched further and found the same video uploaded on Shutterstock. The video was credited to 'FlashMovie'.

• It was uploaded in November 2020.

• On searching for 'FlashMovie' on Google, we came across a website by the same name. It is an online store where people can buy illustrations, high-quality video, and templates.

• We found the same video uploaded on this website too.

• The description of the video mentioned that the video was a "3D animation".

Conclusion: It is clear that the viral video is an old stock video clip which is being shared on the internet with users falsely linking it to Chandrayaan-3.

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