Fact-check: Viral video of moon rising in North Pole is computer generated

A video that social media users have claimed shows the moon eclipsing the sun at the North Pole has gone viral with 5 million views on Twitter alone. But the video is CGI and the scene it presents is not realistic.

Many users appear to believe the video is genuine, posting comments such as: “Might be the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen” here and “WOW!!!! My gob is totally smacked!” here.

However, this video is an animation. It can be traced back to Ukrainian computer graphics (CG) artist Aleksey Patrev, who posted the clip. He consistently posts similar animations to his social media accounts.

The CGI video also depicts several physical improbabilities. Firstly, the landscape is dry grassland, rather than ice. There is no land in the North Pole. As The National Geographic says: “The North Pole is found in the Arctic Ocean, on constantly shifting pieces of sea ice.” A National Geographic map shows the intersecting regions of the Canadian and Russian North Pole – the alleged location of the video – and its distance from the nearest land mass of the countries.

The satellite videos and images of the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service also show there is no land in the North Pole. 

Moreover, the moon is 238,855 miles — around 30 Earths — away from Earth as per NASA. It is highly unlikely that the moon would appear as large as it does in the clip. NASA has, however, released an explainer on why the moon can sometimes appear large when it is rising or setting (here).

According to Live Science, a science news website, if the moon were to move closer to Earth, as it appears in the CGI video, the result would be catastrophic.

Firstly, the gravitational pull would increase, creating higher and lower tides and potentially wiping out islands and low-lying coastal areas. The sudden upsurge in gravity would also trigger earthquakes and increased volcanic eruptions.

Verdict

Miscaptioned. The video is not an authentic clip of the moon rising over the North Pole. It has been computer generated.