| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Old CGI video VIRAL as Russia's Luna-25 crashing into Moon
India Today found that this video has nothing to do with the recent crash of Luna-25. It is a CGI video created using old NASA footage.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
This is computer-generated footage which was created using an old NASA video.
A video allegedly showing Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashing into the Moon has gone viral on social media. According to reports, Russian space agency Roscosmos lost contact with Luna-25 on August 19. The agency stated that the apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the Moon.
The viral video shows a cylindrical object falling freely on an uneven grey surface. As soon as it falls, it explodes.
A Twitter user shared this video with the caption, “LIVE Footage, How Russia's Luna-25 has crashed into the Moon.” The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here and here.
India Today found that this video has nothing to do with Luna-25. It is a CGI video created using old NASA footage. No actual video of Luna-25 crashing into the Moon has been released so far.
Our Probe
Reverse searching frames from the viral video led us to Adobe Stock’s library, where the video was listed as created by “BlackBoxGuild”. The video’s caption read: “Second Stage Rocket Booster Crashing into the Moon and Exploding - Close Shot.” We also found this footage on the stock photo website Alamy. Also credited to BlackBoxGuild, the “Date taken” mentioned here was February 3, 2022.
Further, we found a June 2022 report by The European Times, which described the video as an “artist’s animation of a rocket booster crashing into the Moon.” This proved that the video was old and animated.
NASA connection
We found that a similar video was originally shared by NASA in 2018. Where this video differed from the ones on Adobe Stock and Alamy was that it did not feature the cylindrical object falling and exploding.
According to the information provided by NASA on its website, "The visualisation uses a digital 3D model of the Moon built from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter global elevation maps and image mosaics. The lighting is derived from actual Sun angles during lunar days in 2018." The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon.
Are explosions possible on the Moon?
The answer is, yes. There are media reports of meteors falling on the moon and causing explosions that were visible from Earth. According to NASA, lunar meteors don't require oxygen or combustion to make themselves visible.
They hit the ground with such high kinetic energy that even a pebble can make a huge crater. The flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapours at the impact site.
An important question which arises here is if a spacecraft crashes into the surface of the moon, would there be fire and flames as seen in the viral video? Dr Srimathy Kesan, the founder and CEO of Space Kidz India, an aerospace company, told India Today, “Ordinarily you can't have fires on the moon because there's no oxygen. However, there are hypothetical exceptions.”
Spacecraft that have the ability to manoeuvre, Kesan explained, must have some kind of propellant on board. The propellant usually consists of two parts, fuel and oxidizer, in separate tanks. “If a crash ruptures their tanks and there is a source of ignition, the fuel and oxidizer would burn together until they ran out, and they might burn other parts of the spacecraft that they came in contact with,” she added.
(With inputs from Richeek Mishra)
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)