A viral video showing what appears to be an enormous moon taking up almost the whole sky before it eclipses the sun for just a few seconds purports to have captured an amazing phenomenon of nature.
With millions of views, the clip impressed many internet users who hadn't seen anything quite like it before.
The Claim
Shared by TikTok user @amoskabuthi0 on September 7, the viral video claims to have captured "one of the wonders of nature."
The video features the moon orbiting so close to Earth that it fills the majority of the sky, before briefly eclipsing the sun, turning the whole sky pitch black.
"While orbiting the Earth near the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole between Russia and Canada, the Moon comes so close to the earth it looks as though it will collide with the earth," claims the on-screen text.
"The Moon completes this cycle in just 30 seconds and for 5 seconds it covers the Sun before disappearing into the horizon immediately. One of the wonders of nature."
The video has over 6.5 million views and 590,000 likes at the time of writing.
The Facts
The video is fake and was made by CGI and animation creator @aleksey__nz. Originally, the artist published the video on May 17, where it gained over 32.9 million views.
@aleksey__nz regularly creates animation and CGI videos of space travel and the sky, posting them to his TikTok account where he has over 1.9 million followers.
There are also inconsistencies between the video and the text posted by @amoskabuthi0. The viral TikTok claimed it was filmed at the North Pole, which is completely covered in snow and ice. The video, however, features dry, grassy land.
At perigee, the point at which the moon is closest to Earth, the distance is approximately 360,000 kilometers, so it appears far smaller than the video suggests.
The video also shows various faces of the moon in those few seconds. But in real life, the moon appears still when observed from Earth because it takes about as long to spin once on its axis as it does to complete a single orbit, which is roughly 27 days.
Previous to this video, the artist also duped viewers with an edit of a UFO flying around the moon.
The Ruling
False.
FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK
Although the video is a marvel to watch, it is fake and does not show a natural phenomenon.
The clip itself was created by an artist and the claims in the added text on the secondary video are fabricated.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
