India's Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully landed near the south pole of the Moon, becoming the first country to do so. The mission also marked the fourth soft landing on the lunar surface globally. The rover module, named Pragyan, will establish communication with the lander, which will then transmit data to the orbiter placed by the earlier Chandrayaan-2 mission. This data will be relayed to Earth for further analysis.
Pragyan will move at a pace of one centimeter per second and will imprint the ISRO logo and India's national emblem onto the Moon's surface as it traverses. Shortly after the lunar landing, an image depicting the imprint of the national emblem and ISRO logo, supposedly created by Pragyan's wheel, began circulating on social media. However, this image is a digital creation by a space enthusiast from Lucknow and not an actual imprint from Pragyan's wheel.
A person sharing the viral image, tweeted, “Ashoka Emblem & ISRO logo is etched on the moon for eternity! PragyanRover touches down on the moon surface. Chandrayaan3 is a grand success.” Former actress and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Khushbu Sundar also shared the viral image with a similar claim. Its archive can be seen here.
India TV did a fact check
First of all, we started collecting information about the Chandrayaan-3 mission, so that it could be confirmed whether there is a possibility of making any kind of mark by the Indian rover walking on the moon. When we searched on Google, it came to light that ISRO had released a video on August 25, in which rover Pragyan is seen coming out of lander Vikram. The video shows only the rover descending from the lander's ramp from one angle. ISRO has not released any picture of Pragyan Rover before this video after reaching the moon.
The truth of the picture came to the fore
We did a Google reverse search of this picture and closely examined many of the search results that came up. In this sequence, a Facebook of Chandigarh University came to our notice. The same picture was posted in this post. But the truth was beginning to emerge from the caption of this post. Chandigarh University posted the image on Facebook with the caption, "Chandrayaan-3: An animated model of the rover moving on the lunar surface." It became clear from this that this picture is an animated picture of the marks being engraved on the moon by Pragyan Rover, that is, a computer-generated picture.
The real imprints of the ISRO logo and national emblem will be created by the rover's wheels as it moves across the lunar surface. The six-wheeled Pragyan rover carries two payloads, namely the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), designed to analyse the elemental composition of lunar soil and rocks near the landing site.
Over the next 14 days, the rover will conduct experiments and analysis on the lunar surface. The Vikram lander and Pragyan rover have a mission duration of one lunar day (equal to 14 Earth days). The lander module is equipped with five payloads for specialised tests and experiments on the Moon.
The viral image of the imprint on the Moon's surface is a digital creation and not an actual imprint from Pragyan's wheel.
India TV's Fact Check has found the claim that the rover Pragyan is carving ISRO and India's national symbol Ashoka Pillar emblem on the moon with this picture. But this picture turned out to be completely fake. This picture was created by computer software.
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