An image claiming to show American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, along with US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, has gone viral on social media.
The claim comes against the backdrop of the two astronauts safely returning to Earth on 19 March after being on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months.
What about it?: The image is being shared to claim that it shows the two astronauts with Musk and Trump after they returned to Earth.
How did we find out the truth?: We closely observed the image and notice some peculiar details.
Both Musk and Trump's faces looked overly smooth or misshapen.
There were several badges on Willaims' suit, which were not seen in authentic visuals of her arriving on Earth.
The person behind Williams does not resemble Butch Wilmore.
Is it AI?: Since these errors are consistent with those seen in AI-generated images, we ran the image through two AI content detectors.
Hive Moderation's tool said that the image was 99.2 percent "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content."
SightEngine's tool, too, said it was 98 percent likely that the image was an AI-generated one.
Conclusion: An AI-generated image has gone viral with the false claim that it shows astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore meeting Elon Musk and Donald Trump after they arrived on Earth from the ISS.
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