An image showing Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) logo and India's national emblem imprinted on a rough surface is going viral on social media.
The claim states that this was imprinted by the tyres of Chandrayaan-3 rover on the moon surface.
This comes after ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon on Wednesday, 23 August.
An archive of the post can be seen here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
How did we find out the truth?: We noticed a name written on the left-bottom corner of the image. It read 'Krishanshu Garg'.
This was written on the viral image.
(Source: Altered by The Quint)
Taking a cue, we looked for Krishanshu Garg's social media profiles and found his Instagram account.
We did not find the viral image on his profile but found the same image in his story highlights.
The story was uploaded before Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon and it also carried a timer for the same.
The story was uploaded by Garg.
(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
We reached out to him: Krishanshu Garg, a space enthusiast from Lucknow, who confirmed to us that this image was created by him using Adobe Photoshop.
"I thought out of the box and made an edit of the imprints that Pragyan Rover will leave behind, as confirmed by ISRO and used it just as a countdown for landing," Garg said.
No official images of 'imprints' shared by ISRO: At the time of writing this story, ISRO has not shared any visuals showing imprints made by Chandrayaan-3 on the moon surface.
ISRO has shared other updates and visuals taken by the Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera.
One of the images also showed a portion of Chandrayaan-3's landing site.
Will Chandrayaan-3's rover leave such imprints?: According to reports, Chandrayaan-3's rover named Pragyan will leave imprints of the ISRO and the national emblem.
However, no visual confirmation has been made by ISRO yet.
ISRO shared a curtain raiser video of Chandrayaan-3, showing how the rover would leave imprints of the ISRO logo and the National Emblem. However, it looked different that the one in the viral image.
A link to the curtain raiser video can be found here.
(Source: ISRO/Screenshot)
On 6 September 2019, ISRO shared the Chandrayaan-2 rover's details animated video, which showed (at the 2:45 timestamp) leaving similar imprints.
Conclusion: An edited image of the national emblem and ISRO logo is being falsely shared as an image showing imprints left by Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's surface.
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