(Getty Images/AFP / Dean Mouhtaropoulos)
Misleading claim recirculates online about 'image of northern lights seen from space'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 13, 2020 at 05:45
- 1 min read
- By Taylor THOMPSON-FULLER, AFP New Zealand and Pacific Islands
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The image was published here on Facebook by a New Zealand-based user on August 5, 2020. The post has been shared more than 200 times.
The post’s caption reads: “Northern Light as seen from space. (Image: NASA)”.
The image was also shared with a similar claim on Twitter here and the Irish news website Newstalk here in 2014; and recirculated online in 2020 here, here and here.
The image, however, has been shared in a misleading context.
A keyword search found the image in the misleading post is a screenshot taken from this video produced by NASA. The title reads: “Saturn’s Aurora in a New Light”.
Published by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in November 2009, the footage shows Professor of Planetary Science Andy Ingersoll explaining how the Cassini Satellite took unprecedented images of Saturn’s aurora.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in the misleading post and the NASA video at its one-minute 30-second mark:
In an email on August 12, 2020, the Jet Propulsion Lab told AFP the video on the NASA website “is indeed an animation”.
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