The world watched with bated breath as NASA's Perseverance rover beamed back selfies from Mars after successfully landing on the Martian surface on February 18.
NASA on Friday released stunning new photographs from Perseverance, including one of the rover being gently lowered to the surface of Mars by a set of cables, the first time such a view has been captured.
The high-resolution still was extracted from a video taken by the descent stage of the spacecraft that had transported the rover from Earth.
READ: Selfie from Mars? NASA Perseverance Beams Back Photo from Moment Before Landing
Even as the photographs captivated audiences, however, many were left hoodwinked by a fake video that went viral as fresh footage from Mars. Shared on the microblogging site by a Twitter user called James Holland. "Stop everything for 26 seconds and watch this," Holland wrote on Twitter while sharing a video which he claimed was filmed on Mars by the Perseverence rover.
Stop everything for 26 seconds and watch this.Footage, with sound (!) from the surface of another planet.Just incredible. pic.twitter.com/sEjKcuOJeZ— James Holland (@James7Holland) February 19, 2021
Having been published on Friday, the same day that NASA released new images from the Mars 2020 mission, many fell for the video and believed it to be real. The fake video even made its way to Indian social media feeds and was widely shared.
Not just the ordinary, even some of the world's most famous celebrities like author Stephen King
Mars, man. Check it out. https://t.co/obXdUhococ— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 20, 2021
Just astounding. https://t.co/0LtsoMsVuI— Ken Herman (@kherman) February 19, 2021
This is incredible. We are exploring Mars, another planet with our best technology, Back in Kerala, this innocent planet is considered to bring bad things in our life, especially for a girl's marriage. We still have such superstitions, while America is conquering it Great https://t.co/gcOm56WB9I— Madhavan Rajeevan (@rajeevan61) February 20, 2021
Next time someone tells you government can't do anything, remind them that the government shot a dune buggy 300 million miles, landed it on Mars, and sent back Tik-Tok videos. https://t.co/PL1EXOZb3B— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) February 20, 2021
This is fairly amazing…#Mars #PerseveranceRover https://t.co/teynwjUW3T— WᴶEᴼBᴱB ✌ (@thewebbix) February 20, 2021
When I played this vid all my dogs went NUTS. I wonder what they are hearing that we can't? https://t.co/RONhCfpBxd— Christina_SC #ProsecuteTheGOP (@cscnme) February 20, 2021
But soon, many started wondering how NASA had managed to take such a clear video with sound on Mars and sent it back.
Holy Smokes. Look how clear the video is on Mars. Why don't we have surveillance cameras at banks this good ? https://t.co/DUodYfC813— Adonis (@TLL_VisionShock) February 20, 2021
It’s crazy that they can do this but can’t get power back on in Texas https://t.co/4gISMDA2DL— Jamey Jasta (@jameyjasta) February 20, 2021
Incredible, but...NASA flew all the way to Mars and only brought an iPhone? https://t.co/eRg5IUM2Cw— John Battelle (@johnbattelle) February 19, 2021
As it turns out, the video was not really shot on Mars.
Wow, this guy is combining our sonification of @NASAInSight's seismometer with an image from @MarsCuriosity and posts it two days after @NASAPersevere's landing, *implying* that it was footage from the latter and its microphone. Nice try, buddy! pic.twitter.com/dnR3tC4bp6— Simon Stähler (@exoseismologist) February 20, 2021
I’ve seen this RTed by a number of actual journalists aaaaand it isn’t Perseverance. https://t.co/ToZM9ihuMc— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) February 19, 2021
old footage from curiosity and the sound is added in https://t.co/GXYUbhlwR4 pic.twitter.com/c36tORUlsj— Sen. Bøømer Deśtrøyer, PhD (@RomanSaluter) February 19, 2021
It turns out that the video was actually taken by the Curiosity Rover and that the sound effect was added by the maker of the fake video that showed up just two days after Persevrence made contact with Mars.
NASA, however, did capture several amazing shots of Mars. One such new image, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, captures Perseverance as it was parachuting down through the atmosphere at hundreds of miles an hour.
Perseverance has also been able to upload its first high-resolution, color photo showing the flat region it landed on in the Jezero Crater, where a river and deep lake existed billions of years ago.
A second color image shows one of the rover's six wheels, with several honeycombed rocks thought to be more than 3.6 billion years old lying next to it.
"One of the questions we'll ask first is whether these rocks represent a volcanic or sedimentary origin," said NASA deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan.