Fact Check: This captivating photo of Earth from the Moon was not taken by Chandrayaan-3

A striking photograph of the Earth seemingly from the Moon's surface has been widely shared on social media. "Pictures of Earth from Chandrayaan-3," read a Facebook post containing the photo.

India Today found that the image in question is AI-generated and not an actual photograph shot by Chandrayaan-3, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s lunar mission that landed on the Moon’s south pole on August 23.

Our Probe

A reverse search of the photograph in question led us to the same photo, along with similar others, published on the news network WION's website. The viral photo can be seen on the sixth slide of the report.

The title of the report, "How Earth will look from Moon after Chandrayaan-3 lands," was dated August 23, 2023, at 11.08 am IST. Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the Moon's south polar region at 6.03 pm IST the same day. The report stated that the images were generated using AI to depict Earth's view from the Moon's surface.

Photos from Chandrayaan-3

We searched for the images from Chandrayaan-3 shared by ISRO. On the night of Chandrayaan-3’s landing (August 23), Isro's official Twitter handle shared five images of the Moon’s surface captured by the spacecraft. The first picture taken after landing shows a section of Chandrayaan-3's landing site, while the other four images were captured during the descent.

Isro also shared a photo of Earth taken by the Lander Imager camera onboard Chandrayaan-3 on July 14, 2023, the day of its launch.

Following Chandrayaan’s Moon landing, Isro also tweeted videos of the Moon’s surface. Isro, at the time of writing this, however, had not released any photos of Earth captured by Chandrayaan-3 after its soft landing on the Moon.

It is hence clear that the photo in question is AI-generated, and not an actual view of the Earth from the Moon as captured by India’s lunar mission.