Video of rare biggest moon sighting in the Arctic is false
A video is in circulation that showing the fast rotation of the moon. After becoming very big, it suddenly disappeared. This spectacle was witnessed near the Arctic between Russia and Canada.
By Satya Priya BN Published on 27 May 2021 7:46 AM GMT
On May 26, the world witnessed a full moon and the biggest 'supermoon'. It was the first total lunar eclipse in more than two years. The eclipse was visible for a short span of time in India too.
Amidst this spectacle, a video is in circulation that showing the fast rotation of the moon. After becoming very big, it suddenly disappeared. This spectacle was witnessed near the Arctic between Russia and Canada.
"This is at Artic. Between Russia and Canada... The moon appears this big and disappears in about 30 seconds. What a sight (sic)," reads the claim.
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This claim is being rampantly shared on Facebook, YouTube as well as WhatsApp.
Fact Check:
The claim that the viral video shows the sighting of the biggest supermoon is FALSE.
We can see the rotation of the moon as it orbits the Earth once every 27.322 days. It also takes approximately 27 days for the moon to rotate once on its axis. As a result, the moon does not seem to be spinning. It appears to be keeping almost perfectly still. Scientists call this synchronous rotation.
The side of the moon that perpetually faces Earth is known as the near side. The opposite or the "back" side is the far side. Sometimes the far side is called the dark side of the moon, but this is inaccurate. When the moon is between the Earth and the sun, during the new moon phase, the backside of the moon is bathed in daylight.
https://www.space.com/24871-
According to the NASA website, the time it takes for the Moon to rotate once around its axis is equal to the time it takes for the Moon to orbit once around Earth. This keeps the same side of the Moon facing towards Earth throughout the month.
If the Moon did not rotate on its axis at all, or if it rotated at any other rate, then we would see different sides of the Moon throughout the month
https://moon.nasa.gov/inside-
Though the moon can be seen moving, its rotation cannot be witnessed by us. The viral video shows the fast rotation of the moon, which is obviously NOT a natural phenomenon and is a MORPHED video.
In the viral video, the moon seems to suddenly disappear and appear again. As observed over the years, the eclipse occurs gradually covering the moon and then releasing it again. Such sudden disappearance of the moon was never witnessed during the Lunar Eclipse.
When searched online for the videos of the lunar eclipse that occurred on May 26, 2021, we found several visuals across the media websites. But there was nothing similar to viral video.
Here is the video of the lunar eclipse live-streamed by Griffith Observatory.
NASA moon Twitter account can be checked for more amazing visuals of the moon.
Hence, the viral video is morphed. It claims to be showing the visuals of a rare big moon from near the arctic. However, it is a graphical show created by humans. So, the claim is FALSE.
