Does this video show a real asteroid crashing into the moon, prompting an explosion following the collision? No, that's not true: Lead Stories determined through a reverse image search that the footage in question was first posted by a YouTube creator in February 2023 and was later shared by an account on Instagram that confirmed the clip was created using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Furthermore, no credible news outlets reported such an event as of September 8, 2023.
A version of the claim originated in a reel shared on Facebook on August 18, 2023, (archived here) by the page According to Science. A caption that accompanied the post read:
Live Footage： Asteroid Hitting The Moon! #nasa #telescope #moon #spacestation #asteroid #shorts #funfacts #history #funhistoryfacts #usa #unitedstates #unitedkingdom #australia #canada #funhistoryfacts #scientists #scientistscantanswer #mysterious #discovery #universe #spaceporn #space #galaxies #outerspace #reality #simulationtheory #multipleuniverses #bubbletheory #wormhole #cern #interdimensional
Below is how the post appeared at the time of this publication:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Mon Sept 11 19:53:00 UTC 2023)
Lead Stories took several screenshots of the Facebook clip and conducted a reverse image search using the stills. This helped locate the original video posted to Instagram on June 2, 2023, by the account, @thedeepastronomy, which shares space-related content. A caption that accompanied the original video explicitly stated that it was created using CGI:
Asteroid Hitting The Moon (CGI) 😱
Follow @thedeepastronomy for more ♥️
.
.
Via diego.sinclair
#nasa #telescope #moon #spacestation #asteroid
Below is how the post on Instagram appeared at the time of this publication:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken Fri Sept 8 12:23:17 UTC 2023)
Another version of the video appeared on Facebook in a now-deleted post, (shown below on the left) and was flipped on its vertical axis to present a slightly different view than the original video posted on Instagram (below right), a ruse commonly used to elude copyright claims and/or fact checking by social media platforms. A side-by-side comparison is shown below:
(Source: Lead Stories compilation created taken Fri Sept 8 12:25:48 UTC 2023)
Lead Stories then searched Google for "Diego Sinclair," the person to whom the post on Instagram credited for having created the video. We found that the video was originally posted to YouTube on February 24, 2023, (archived here) and was titled, "Asteroid Hitting The Moon! #lunarsurface #telescope #moon #asteroid #shorts." In the comments section, the creator confirmed that the clip was not authentic footage:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken Fri Sept 8 12:53:22 UTC 2023)
Lastly, a search for the phrase "asteroid impact moon" using Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites did not reveal any factual reports that this video was authentic. Should such an event have occurred and had been captured on camera, there would certainly have been news coverage by science agencies and reputable publications.
Lead Stories has debunked other false claims made about the moon, including that then-President Richard Nixon did not fake a phone call to the moon when astronauts first landed in 1969, that a video describing a father's "deathbed confession" did not prove the U.S. government faked the landing, and that a "confidential source" did not find more than 250 million "humanoid aliens" living on the moon.
