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| - Fact Check: This isn't the Moon, it's Mars! Curiosity rover footage viral as Chandrayaan-3's
A video shot by NASA's Curiosity Rover was shared as the first video sent by Chandrayaan-3 after landing on the Moon.
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India Today Fact Check
This video shows the surface of Mars captured by NASA’s Curiosity Rover.
As the Pragyan Rover traverses the Moon, people on Earth are awaiting more visuals of the lunar surface. Now, a video of a rocky grey surface is being shared widely on social media. In the clip, there were arrows pointing out different areas captured in the footage.
Many on social media shared the footage claiming that this was the first video of the Moon sent by Chandrayaan-3 after its landing. One such post was viewed by more than a million people at the time of writing this report. An archived version of this post can be seen here.
India Today found that this video is not from the Moon at all. It shows visuals captured by NASA’s Curiosity Rover on Mars.
Our Probe
We could read the words “NASA” and “Mars” present in the text placed at the bottom of the viral video, at around 2 minutes 40 seconds. This suggested that the video might not be from the Moon at all.
We then ran a reverse search of keyframes from the viral video, which led us to a YouTube video shared on August 8. According to its description, this video was shot by NASA’s Curiosity Rover tracking Mars. The text present in the video stated that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree view of an impact crater in a location called “Jau” on Mars. This video, unlike the viral one, was not grey, but browner. This indicated that the viral clip’s colour was digitally changed.
With a keyword search, we then found an extended version of the viral video shared by a YouTube channel called “Tavi Technical Space” on August 8. The description clearly stated that the footage was captured by NASA’s Mars Rover.
According to the video’s description, these visuals were captured by the Curiosity Rover’s Mastcam on July 25, 2023. It further stated that this wide-angle panorama was stitched together from 132 individual photos taken on mission “Sol 3090” by the Rover.
Curiosity Rover is a part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. It was launched on November 26, 2011, and it landed on Mars on August 5, 2012. The launch vehicle used in this mission was Atlas V-451.
On NASA’s website, several panoramic images and 360-degree videos of Mars are available, sorted by Sol — a term for Solar day, which refers to the time it takes for Mars to revolve once around its own axis.
Thus, it is more than clear that a video showing the surface of Mars shared by NASA was falsely peddled as footage from Chandrayaan-3.
(Written by Sanjana Saxena)
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