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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Science & space fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about science & space. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

1,577 published reviews in this topic

YouturnScience & space

இட்லி விற்கும் ‘சந்திரயான் 3′ திட்ட பொறியாளர்! இஸ்ரோவின் ‘சந்திரயான் 3′ திட்டத்திற்கு ஏவுதளம் வடிவமைத்த ஜார்க்கண்ட்டை சேர்ந்த பொறியாளர் தீபக் குமார், 18 மாதங்கள் ஊதியம் வழங்காததால், செலவை சமாளிக்க இட்லி வியாபாரம் செய்து வருகிறார். பகலில் அலுவலகம் செல்லும் இவர் காலை, மாலை என இரு வேளைகளிலும் இட்லி விற்று வருகிறார்; இதன்மூலம் ஒரு நாளைக்கு ரூ.300 – ரூ.400 வரை சம்பாதிப்பதாக தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

Deutsche Presse-AgenturScience & space

Im Screenshot ist eine mögliche HAARP-Anlage zu sehen.

Publisher’s rating: Im Posting zu sehen ist eine Radarkarte, deren Zentrum eine slowenische Wetterstation ist. Die weltweit einzige HAARP-Anlage steht in Alaska, ist öffentlich zugänglich und dient der Erforschung der Ionosphäre. Die globalen Wetterbedingungen entstehen hingegen in tieferliegenden Sphären. Zudem reicht die Energie von HAARP nicht aus, um auf das Wetter Einfluss zu nehmen.

FACTLYScience & space

This photograph was taken by NASA’s Orion spacecraft

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a photograph showing a crescent Earth above the Moon’s horizon, circulated with the attribution that it was taken from NASA’s Orion spacecraft. FACTLY’s review says it used a reverse image search to investigate the image and found that NASA’s website identified it as a photograph taken during Apollo 17, not Orion.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaScience & space

ඔස්ට්‍රේලියානු විද්‍යාඥයෙක් අභ්‍යවකාශයේ සිට පොළොවට පතිත බවට පවසන වීඩියෝව සත්‍යයක් ද?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The review examines a social-media video said to show an Australian scientist jumping from space and reaching Earth in four minutes and five seconds. It reports that the footage is actually of Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s 2012 jump, not an Australian scientist’s. The publisher says it used InVID-WeVerify to inspect the video and matched it to Baumgartner’s historical jump. The review also points to visual and audio clues in the footage and says the video corresponds to Red Bull Stratos material.

FACTLYScience & space

This footage shows an asteroid striking the Moon’s surface

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a viral video presented as footage of an asteroid striking the Moon. The review reports that an internet search for coverage of such an incident did not find credible reports. It then used reverse image searches of keyframes to trace the clip to an Instagram post by the astronomy page Deep Astronomy, which credited the video to Diego Sinclair and described it as CGI. The review says it found the same video on Sinclair’s YouTube channel, where he also posted similar clips. The decisive evidence was the video’s creator’s description of it as edited. In response to a skeptical commenter, Sinclair wrote, “It’s just an edit.” FACTLY concludes from this provenance and comment that the visuals are not actual footage of an asteroid hitting the Moon; it describes the clip as computer-generated and the claim as false. The review distinguishes this fabricated clip from genuine lunar impact observations. It reports that Daichi Fujii, curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum, recorded a brief lunar impact flash on February 23, 2023, and quotes Fujii identifying the time as 20:14:30.8. That separate observation does not authenticate the viral video: the review identifies the clip under examination as an edited video, while describing Fujii’s observation as a different event.

FACTLYScience & space

Pragyaan rover transmitted the footage of aliens to ISRO and ISRO chairman stated that they discovered 700 aliens on Moon

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The viral post attributed two assertions to the Chandrayaan-3 mission: that the Pragyan rover transmitted footage of aliens to ISRO, and that ISRO chairman Dr. S. Somnath said roughly 700 aliens had been discovered on the Moon. FACTLY reports that it checked ISRO’s official website and social-media accounts for a statement about such a discovery, and examined footage from the Pragyan rover and Vikram lander. The review found no ISRO statement confirming aliens based on the rover’s footage and no evidence of aliens in the footage it examined. It instead describes ISRO announcements about scientific measurements of the lunar surface: the rover’s LIBS and APXS instruments detected several elements, including aluminium, sulphur, calcium, iron, chromium and titanium; later measurements identified manganese, silicon and oxygen. The review also says hydrogen was still under investigation and that scientific analysis was ongoing. The review’s conclusion is that the alien-discovery claim is unsupported by the official statements and mission footage it describes. It further reports that the alien visuals in the viral video came from animated stock sources and had been combined with Chandrayaan-3 footage and other visuals. These findings address both the alleged official announcement and the media presented as evidence for it.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaScience & space

චන්ද්‍රයාන් – 3 සඳ මත මෙහෙයුමේදී ලබා ගත් ඡායාරූපයක් ද?

Publisher’s rating: Altered

The review investigated a social-media image presented as a photograph taken during Chandrayaan-3’s mission on the Moon. It reports that Chandrayaan-3 landed on the lunar surface on August 23, 2023, and that the image circulated with the claim that it came from that mission. The review checked whether the image appeared among images officially released by ISRO, then traced the image’s earlier appearances and compared it with an unedited photograph. The review says it could not find the image on ISRO’s X account. A reverse-image search led to a 9GAG post dated August 19, which the review describes as satirical and aimed at mocking people who believe the Earth is flat. It also found a similar image on TIME’s website, dated July 30, 2021. These findings place the image’s circulation before Chandrayaan-3’s lunar landing and point to an earlier source than the mission. The review identifies the underlying photograph as an image from Apollo 8 in 1968, showing Earth rising beyond the Moon’s surface. It says NASA’s official website carried that image and that a NASA YouTube video uploaded on December 11, 2018, shows it at 3:55. The review’s conclusion is that the image circulating as a Chandrayaan-3 photograph was edited from this earlier Apollo 8 image.