Several old and unrelated videos showing visuals of Earth shot from space are being shared on social media with a false claim that they were captured by Chandrayaan-3.
Chandrayaan-3 is the recent Indian lunar exploration mission under the Chandrayaan program of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is set to land on the moon's surface on August 23, 2023.
In this video, an aerial video of Earth can be seen from space. The video is being shared on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the caption, "Amazing view of earth from space #Chandrayaan3 #isro #nasa"
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Another animated video is also being shared on Facebook with the caption when translated reads, "Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Picturesque view of Earth from lunar orbit.."
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the videos are unrelated and not visuals shot by Chandrayaan-3 showing an areal view of Earth from space.
Video 1
At the 23 seconds timestamp, the video is credited to the University of Iowa and Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit. The text reads, "Som ET-Credit: University of lowa, Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center (ISS067-E-357091-357756)"
Taking a hint from this, we found that the same video was posted on Instagram by the handle som.et on April 13, 2023, with the caption, "Som ET - 83 - Earth - ISS 067-E-357091-357756 Audio: Som ET - 83 - Earth. Audio recordings of NASA's Van Allen Probes/Waves plasma wave observations. NASA Images: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/mrf.pl?scope=both&MRFList=ISS067-E-357091-357756 Credit: University of Iowa, Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center"
Further, we ran a reverse image search using Google Images which search showed that the same video was uploaded on the official website of The European Space Agency. The caption of the video read, "Timelapse video made during ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti’s second mission to the International Space Station, “Minerva”. Samantha shared this video on social media with the caption: “One last time, fly along with me! Farewell and, as always, thanks for all the fish!”"
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The video was posted by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on X on October 13, 2022.
Video 2
On looking at the video it can be clearly made out that it is animated. Taking a hint from this we then found that the same video was uploaded on X by the user Mithilesh Keshari (@mkeshari) on August 20, 2023. In the replies, Keshari states that the video is animated and that he has edited it and used an AI tool.
Photo of Earth captured by Chandrayaan-3
ISRO's official Twitter account posted photos of Earth captured by Chandrayaan-3 on August 10, 2023.