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| - Fact Check: Viral pic of national emblem on lunar surface is NOT Pragyan's work, it's photoshopped
It's an illustration created by a space enthusiast from Lucknow using Adobe Photoshop.
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India Today Fact Check
The viral image is digitally created by a space enthusiast using Adobe Photoshop and does not represent an actual imprint from Pragyan's wheel.
With the successful and smooth landing of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-3 Lander Module (LM), India achieved the remarkable feat of becoming the first country to land near the south pole of the Moon. This achievement also marked the fourth soft landing on the lunar surface, globally.
The Rover Module (RM) named Pragyan will establish communication with the lander, which in turn will transmit data to the orbiter placed by the earlier Chandrayaan-2 mission, still orbiting the Moon. This data will then be relayed to Earth for further analysis. According to ISRO, Pragyan will move at a pace of one centimetre per second. As it traverses, it will imprint the space organisation’s logo and India’s national emblem onto the Moon's surface.
Shortly after Chandrayaan-3's lunar landing, an image depicting the imprint of India's national emblem and ISRO's logo, supposedly created by Pragyan's wheel, began circulating on social media. The image seemed to show two parallel wheel tracks containing the imprints of these two symbols.
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 Today found that the viral image is not an actual imprint from Pragyan's wheel, but a digitally created illustration by a space enthusiast from Lucknow using Adobe Photoshop.
OUR PROBE
A reverse search led to other social media posts featuring the same image. Chandigarh University’s Facebook page also shared the photo and wrote: "An animated representation of rover roving on the Moon's surface. The image here contained a watermark for “Krishanshu Garg”.
India Today found Krishanshu Garg on social media and reached out to him for more details. A businessman from Lucknow, Garg told India Today that he created the image inspired by ISRO's curtain raiser video. He also shared the image on his Instagram Stories. He said that he used Adobe Photoshop to create the now-viral image. Garg, a dedicated space enthusiast following Chandrayaan-3's progress closely, shared the image after the successful lunar landing.
In the official video on ISRO’s website, the emblem and logo of the space agency are shown to be on different wheels, contradicting the viral image where both are embossed on the same wheel.
The six-wheeled Pragyan rover carries two payloads, namely the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (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.
Thus, it’s clear that the viral image of an imprint on the Moon's surface featuring India's national emblem and ISRO's logo is a digital creation by a space enthusiast and not an actual imprint from Pragyan's wheel.
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