Fact check: Did the 'Artemis II' crater photo with Earth come from real mission?
WASHINGTON, DC: An image showing a massive crater on the Moon with Earth in the background is going viral online, with claims that it was captured during NASA’s Artemis II mission. This comes as Artemis II has completed its historic lunar flyby and returned to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, while NASA also released real images of lunar craters. With the confusion spreading online, here’s a fact-check on the viral photo.
Claim: Image of a large crater on the Moon with Earth in the background is real
An image showing a large crater on the Moon with Earth in the background is being widely shared online, with claims that it was taken during NASA’s Artemis II mission.
The picture has received thousands of reactions on Facebook and initially looks like it was captured from a window of the Orion spacecraft.
Posts sharing the image claim it shows the 'Orientale Basin.' They say, “For the first time in human history, the full scale of the moon’s Orientale Basin has been witnessed by human eyes. Astronauts aboard the Artemis II mission captured this breathtaking view from the Orion spacecraft, marking a monumental milestone in deep-space exploration.”
The posts also add: “The newly released image was taken through an Orion capsule window as the crew passed directly over the site. The timing was impeccable: as the spacecraft began its descent toward the lunar far side, the camera captured the basin’s entire diameter with Earth perfectly framed in the black void above. Entering the 'Zone of Silence.'”
Fact Check: Fake, viral image shown as Artemis II is created using AI
However, this widely shared image from Artemis II is not real and is almost certainly created using artificial intelligence. It is not an actual photograph from the Artemis II mission.
Several signs suggest it is AI-generated. Many versions of the image include text in the bottom-right corner reading “Science and Astro,” pointing to a social media page that posted it on April 6.
The version shared by that page also shows a 'Gemini' watermark, which is commonly linked to Google’s AI tools.
The same account even commented on a similar image, saying it was “just updated using AI but is originally taken by NASA, the world is still the real as in the original images, just edited to avoid copyrights [sic].”
However, there is no match between this viral image and any real photos taken by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby. The actual views of the Orientale Basin released by NASA look different from what is shown in the viral picture.
