Fact Check: Image showing Earth from moon’s surface is AI-generated

Hyderabad: An image of Earth apparently taken from the moon’s surface is being widely shared on social media.

The social media users claim that the images have been captured by the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3, the lunar mission that landed on the moon’s south pole on August 23.

Is the magnificent view of Earth from the moon real? Let’s find out.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false.

On performing a reverse image search, we found that the viral image was shared by the news outlet WION as Shorts on August 23. The caption for the images is “How the earth will look from the eyes of Chandrayaan-3.”

The Shorts also mentions that images were AI-generated just to depict Earth’s view from the moon’s surface.

We also found that on August 10, WION also published a report with the real images of Earth as captured by Chandrayaan-3 before landing. The report is titled, “ISRO releases majestic images of Earth and moon captured by Chandrayaan 3”

The copy states that the “first images were taken on July 14 when the mission was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The first image shows Earth as viewed by the Lander Image Camera. The second image, captured by Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera (LHVC) showed the craters Aristarchus, Eddington and Pythagoras along with one of the dark plains on the lunar surface Oceanus Procellarum.”

We spotted the same images of Earth as shared by Chandrayaan-3 on the official X handle of ISRO, dated August 10.

As of now, Chandrayaan-3 has not released any such image of Earth as seen from the moon after landing.