Digital art misrepresented as visuals from Mars

Published on October 31, 2025 at 10:25
2 min read
By Anne CHAN, AFP Hong Kong

After NASA announced it had found potential evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars, imagery supposedly released by the US space agency spread widely on social media. The visuals trace back to a "digital creator", and no such clip could be found on NASA's website.

"NASA has released the latest photos of Mars, which is 140 million miles (225 million kilometres) away from Earth," reads a simplified Chinese Douyin post published October 24, 2025.

It shares moving imagery -- not photos -- depicting a sandy planet taken by a rover with several objects highlighted in red.

Screenshot of the false Douyin post captured on October 28 with a red X added by AFP

The clip was shared elsewhere on Douyin, TikTok, Instagram and X. It also spread in other languages including English, Portuguese and Urdu after scientists at NASA announced on September 10 that one of its rovers had found a potential "biosignature" or sign of life on Mars (archived here and here).

The Perseverance Mars rover collected the "Sapphire Canyon" rock samples in July 2024 from what is thought to be an ancient lakebed, and its poppyseed and leopard-esque spots pointed to potential chemical reactions that piqued the interest of researchers.

There are several rovers ambling across Mars -- Perseverance has been there since 2021 -- seeking signs of life that could have existed millions to billions of years ago, when the planet was thought to have been more habitable.

Many social media users appeared to believe the circulating video was taken from Mars.

"Mars looks breathtakingly beautiful in this footage! The vast, rusty dunes and the clear horizon are truly mesmerising. It's incredible to think we're witnessing such clarity from 140 million miles away. Thank you for sharing this glimpse of the Red Planet!" one commented.

Another wrote: "I still don't understand the fascination of living on this desolate, cold planet that has no oxygen, life or water."

NASA uploads raw images received from its Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on its official website, but none of the visuals match those in the circulating clip (archived here and here).

A reverse image search of keyframes using Google led to the earliest version of the video posted by an account called "curiositydeepspace" on Instagram, Threads and Facebook on October 13.

While the posts also claim the visuals are from NASA, the description of the pages all describe "curiositydeepspace" as a "digital creator".

The content creator did not respond when AFP reached out for comment.

Screenshot comparison of the false Douyin post (L) and the Facebook video captured on October 28, 2025

An examination of the clip also found visual inconsistencies such as different orientations of shadows -- one object has a shadow pointing to its right, but nearby rocks cast theirs in the opposite direction.

Screenshot of the false Doyin video captured on October 28, 2025, with visual inconsistencies highlighted in red and yellow

AFP has debunked other misinformation about Mars here and here.

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