A viral video claims to show footage of the surface of Mars captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover. It’s racked up a million views on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Curiosity is one of five robotic vehicles called rovers that NASA has sent to the red planet.
But as AI-generated images and videos become more widespread on social media, some people in the post’s replies were skeptical that footage is from Mars.
One person wrote, “Looks like the Earth,” while others appeared to speculate that the footage was actually taken in Nevada. A VERIFY viewer also asked the team to look into the video.
THE QUESTION
Is a viral video claiming to show the surface of Mars captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover real?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, the video is real. The footage was captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover and released in 2018.
WHAT WE FOUND
Using Google’s reverse image search tool, VERIFY traced the viral video back to a 2018 post on the NASA Mars Exploration Program website.
That post includes a narrated video showing a panoramic image captured by the Mars Curiosity rover. Still images from the panorama are available on NASA’s website.
Spokespersons for NASA also confirmed to VERIFY that the social media post appears to include footage from its narrated Curiosity video.
VERIFY compared the viral video with the one published by NASA, and found that a scene shown about 12 seconds into the viral video matches one that appears at about 18 seconds into the NASA video.
NASA says it adjusted the color tone of the Mars panorama to make it easier for geologists to study the rock formations. That’s why the images look similar to those you would capture on Earth.
A NASA webpage shows the differences between raw, natural and white-balanced photos of the Mars terrain.
The Curiosity rover captured the images that make up the panorama from inside Mars’ Gale Crater, where it landed in August 2012. Gale Crater was formed by the impact of a large meteorite between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago, the National Air and Space Museum says.
According to NASA, the Curiosity rover navigated its way to the top of a ridge about 1,073 feet above its landing site to capture the panoramic image.
The scenery shown in the panorama is Gale Crater’s northern rim, towering 1.2 miles – or more than 6,300 feet – above the rover. A hill about 50 miles away, well outside of the crater, is also visible in the panoramic image.
Curiosity is still operational as of August 2023, marking its 11th year on the red planet.
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