Fact Check: Old CGI video passed off as Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashing into Moon

A video of a cylindrical object falling purportedly on the moon’s surface is viral on social media. Users claim that the video shows Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashing into the Moon.

An X (formerly Twitter) shared the image with the caption, “LIVE Footage, How Russia's Luna-25 has crashed into the Moon.” The archived version of the post can be accessed here.

The claim comes after Russia’s s space agency Roscosmo announced that it had lost contact with the Luna-25 spacecraft, which crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit. Luna-25 was competing with Chandrayaan-3 to be the first to reach the moon's south pole.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that it is a Computer-generated (CGI) video. It has nothing to do with Luna-25.

On performing a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found it published by Alamy titled “Second Stage Rocket Booster Crashing into the Moon and Exploding - Close Shot.”

As per the stock website, the video was contributed by “BlackBoxGuild” and was taken on February 3, 2022.

We also found the video in a June 2022 report by The European Times. It described the video as an “Artist’s animation of a rocket booster crashing into the moon.”

Here is the comparison of the stills from the viral video and Alamy’s video.

We also searched for the Luna-25 crashed video but could not find any. Hence, we conclude that the old CGI-generated video is linked to the crash of Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft.