India TV Fact Check: India made history on August 23 with the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon. Prior to the landing, the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 sent several images of the lunar surface. On social media, various images and videos related to the Chandrayaan-3 mission are going viral. Some of these are also misleading. A video is going viral on social media claiming to show the "inside view" of the Moon and asserting that Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) recent Indian lunar exploration mission captured these visuals. However, India TV's fact-checking team found that the reality behind this video is different.
Claim
A Facebook page by the name ‘Sonu Golden Bhai’ was among those who shared the viral video on August 23. The caption suggests that the footage was captured by Chandrayaan-3 on August 23 and that it depicts the moon's surface from orbit. The caption read, “Moon Inside View capture by Ch-3. chandrayaan-3 will create history on 23rd August, all pray to God and best wishes.”
The video shows a very close view of the lunar surface and it seems that the camera is recording the video while rotating in orbit above the lunar surface. The surface of the moon is visible from different angles in this video. The video is being presented in such a way that these pictures of the moon have been taken by Chandrayaan-3.
Screenshot of viral message
India TV did a fact check
However, upon fact-checking, India TV's fact-check team found that the video is not authentic and doesn't represent images taken by Chandrayaan-3. The visuals in the video appear to be edited or manipulated to create the illusion of capturing the moon's surface from an orbiting camera. Therefore, the claim that the video shows images taken by Chandrayaan-3 is false.
We first carefully watched the video. After that, we conducted a reverse image search on some frames from the video. During this search, we came across several search results. During this process, we also came across a report from the American space agency NASA, which showed images similar to those in the viral video.
During this, our attention was drawn to another frame of the video, in which Earth was visible from a distance, and the text said, "Once Earth was finally back within sight, the astronauts were able to reestablish radio contact with Mission Control." The line meant, 'When Earth finally became visible again, the astronauts were able to re-establish radio contact with Mission Control.'
The line indicated that the video was related to space travel and not specifically Chandrayaan-3. The doubt arose due to the fact that Chandrayaan-3 is an entirely unmanned mission by ISRO. The video is not related to Chandrayaan-3 but rather focuses on space travel involving astronauts.
Screenshot of viral message
Original visuals of Apollo-13
During our reverse image search, we came across the report from NASA and proceeded with the investigation. This report was published on NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio website on February 24, 2020.
The NASA report was about their Apollo 13 mission, titled "Apollo 13 Moon View Using LRO Data." Inside this report, we found all the images and visuals that were appearing in the viral video. When we carefully read this, we found out that these visualizations were created using data obtained from Apollo 13 and then processed for visualization.
According to this NASA report, these visuals were created through technology using multimedia data taken during the Apollo-13 mission of 1970.
Screenshot of an old video
NASA's original video found in investigation
After further investigation, we found a video on NASA's official YouTube channel that was uploaded on February 24, 2020. The video is titled "Apollo 13 Views of the Moon in 4K" and showcases various stunning views of the moon recreated by NASA. These images were created using data taken from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, which was taken by the Apollo-13 astronauts during their mission in 1970. In this NASA video, we can see the same visuals that are being claimed in the viral video on Facebook to be from Chandrayaan-3's inside view.
In our investigation, it was found that the video viral on Facebook as Chandrayaan-3 is misleading. NASA's report found on the basis of the keyframes of the video and the original video prepared from the data of Apollo-13 is confirming that the said video is not related to Chandrayaan-3.
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