Astronaut floating above Earth: Do you know truth behind this viral photo?

A photo of an astronaut’s untethered spacewalk has gone viral on social media which surprised many people who have now started questioning its authenticity.

The photo was posted by a Twitter user John Pompliano, captioning it, “Insane picture of astronaut Bruce McCandless II, the first person to conduct an untethered free flight in space.”

Insane picture of astronaut Bruce McCandless II, the first person to conduct an untethered free flight in space. pic.twitter.com/6HTKkrE0DF

— John Pompliano (@JohnPompliano) January 12, 2022

Reacting to the post, a user wrote, “So funny how many ppl believe this nonsense”. Another user thought, “Welcome to the wonderful world of image compression and jpg artifacts”

So funny how many ppl believe this nonsense

— AMA Archer (@icrack3dth3code) January 12, 2022

Welcome to the wonderful world of image compression and jpg artifacts

— Julius Horsthuis (@JuliusHorsthuis) January 13, 2022

“He did this in 1984. Literally just google his name. This photo is photoshopped tho, but only to make the mountains appear like they do. He really did this untethered. He died in 2017! Stop spreading fake pics tho, that’s messed up,” a user said.

🚩🚩🚩

He did this in 1984. Literally just google his name. This photo is photoshopped tho, but only to make the mountains appear like they do. He really did this untethered. He died in 2017!

Stop spreading fake pics tho, that’s messed up.

— 🚩Crypto Cyber Police (@datcyberguy) January 12, 2022

Fact-check

Here comes the facts about this viral photo of an astronaut’s untethered spacewalk which was actually shared on Facebook on November 4.

The post had read, “This is a real image of an astronaut that ventured 320 feet from the orbiter, he was 170 miles above Earth. It’s arguably one of the best astronaut related photos ever taken!”

According to a report of USA Today, some parts of the viral photo were taken from the 1984 picture of astronaut Bruce McCandless II during the first-ever untethered spacewalk.

In 1984, Bruce McCandless II and fellow astronaut Robert Lee Stewart piloted a jet propulsion backpack, called the Manned Maneuvering Unit while the untethered spacewalk did take place.

It is obvious that the viral photo on Twitter is digitally altered as the mountain ranges that are visible in the viral photo was not there in the original NASA image.

Moreover, the Earth image had been taken from a mountain range photo which was captured during a flight from Toronto to Beijing, China.