CLAIMSome space images of Earth are being shared across social media platforms with the claim that these are the first set of pictures captured by Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft that was launched into the earth's orbit on July 22.
These images are being shared on WhatsApp with a caption that reads “First photograph of Earth sent by Chandrayaan 2. What an eye-catching visual it is!”
Apart from these two images, many more similar images are being shared by some Facebook users with the same claim.
Child artist
Akshara Kishor shared a video made out of these images on her official Facebook account, making the same claim.
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Faksharakishorofficial%2Fvideos%2F2334837516779348%2F&show_text=0&width=476" width="476" height="476" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>
On Twitter too, certain users posted the images making the same claim.
TRUTHChandrayaan 2 has not sent any photograph so far. The images being shared have nothing to do with the shuttle.
Times Fact Check could not find any such photographs on the official Twitter handle of ISRO.
On July 26, ISRO took to Twitter to inform about Chandrayaan 2 successfully performing 2nd orbit raising task.
When we looked through Chandrayaan 2 section on ISRO’s website, the latest images that were posted there were from the time the mission was launched.
Times Fact Check then reached out to Vivek Singh, ISRO’s PR and media director.
“ISRO hasn’t released any image sent by Chandrayaan 2 so far,” he said.
Chandrayaan-2
is set to enter the Moon's orbit on August 20 this year.
TRUTH BEHIND SOME OF THE IMAGES BEING SHAREDWe performed reverse-image search on some of the images and got these results:
Picture 1
This image is being credited to US space agency
NASA by a website called ‘New Scientist’, which carried the photo in a
report dated July 24, 2008 on Aurora borealis.
Picture 2
This image has its presence on many websites as an
iPhone wallpaper.
Picture 3
This image was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). It shows a large plume of smoke, steam and ash erupting from the
Sarychev volcano on the Kuril Islands, Russia.
Picture 4
We found this image in a
report dated February 1 ,2017 on website ‘The Daily Galaxy’. Since no context is given to this image, the exact date on which the picture was taken could not be established.
VERDICTTimes Fact Check has found that the images being shared with the claim that they were sent by Chandrayaan-2 have nothing to do with this mission.