Viral video does not include actual sounds from Mars
By ALI SWENSON
yesterday
apnews.com
CLAIM: Video from the surface of Mars includes genuine sounds from the surface of the planet.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The Mars Curiosity rover, which was not equipped with microphones, captured the panoramic photograph that forms the basis for this video. The sound effects were edited into the video, NASA spokesman Andrew Good confirmed to The Associated Press.
THE FACTS: The camera pans across the surface of Mars, with wind-like sounds playing in the background.
“Stop everything for 26 seconds and watch this,” one Twitter user urged his followers on Friday. “Footage, with sound (!) from the surface of another planet. Just incredible.”
“Here’s some footage (with sound!) from the surface of another planet, and you’re just gonna scroll past it without even noticing to continue looking at memes, aren’t you,” another Twitter user quipped.
More than 6 million Twitter users viewed the video on Friday, and tens of thousands retweeted it, including an Axios journalist and a Georgia state election official who debunked scores of false claims last year.
However, the video does not include genuine sound, as the NASA Mars Curiosity rover, which captured it, does not have microphones, according to Good.
It’s also not a real video, but a panoramic photograph edited into video form, Good said.
Ashwin Vasavada, a project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, identified the photograph as the space agency’s “1.8-billion pixel mosaic,” captured in November 2018.
“Curiosity does not have any sound from Mars,” Vasavada told the AP.
NASA has picked up seismic vibrations from the surface of Mars, but has never recorded sounds from the surface of the planet using microphones, Good said.
The space agency’s Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars this week, is expected to capture sounds from the planet using microphones for the first time.
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This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
Here’s more information on Facebook’s fact-checking program: facebook.com
apnews.com
The viral Mars Perseverance rover video going around is fake
NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has already accomplished tremendous things. But, just days after a dramatic landing in the Martian desert, the rover hasn't started rumbling great distances around the red planet.
Yet a viral video circulating on Twitter — already viewed 17.1 million times as of Feb. 20 from just one account (there are millions more views elsewhere) — presents a different, bogus story.
The video, which also includes deceiving audio, shows what appears to be panorama imagery captured by the Mars Curiosity rover. This NASA rover landed on Mars in 2012, and has since traveled over 15 miles of rocky terrain. Over the years, Curiosity has captured a plethora of rich, vivid Mars imagery.
For reference, here's a screenshot of the fake Perservance video. Below it, we describe some of the conspicuous ways we know it's not from the latest Mars rover mission.
Why it's not a Perseverance video
NASA hasn't instructed Perseverance to drive anywhere yet. The video shows a long trail of rover tracks.
At the end of the video, you can see "Curiosity" printed on the rover (bottom left).
NASA also hasn't instructed Perseverance to lift its mast yet (as of Feb. 20), which holds the high-definition cameras that might capture such imagery.
Perseverance has microphones to capture Martian sound. The Curiosity rover doesn't have these microphones. However, around two years ago NASA engineers found a clever way to sense some Martian wind using NASA's InSight lander. But the sounds in the video have no connection to Curiosity's imagery.
The imagery looks like it's taken on a high ridge. Perseverance intentionally landed in a crater near an ancient river delta, where NASA believes water once existed on Mars.
The Perseverance rover, fitted with extraordinary technology to seek out potential evidence of past microbial life on Mars, has a promising future, whatever it does (or doesn't) find.
To authentically follow what the rover is up to on social media, avoid random Twitter videos and simply follow NASA's Perservance account. The agency will avidly follow everything the wheeled robot does. Like many of us, they are thrilled about their latest rover.
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