Description: Viral image / Hoax
Circulating since: Aug. 2012
Status: Fake
Analysis: The above image began circulating within days after Curiosity, NASA's latest roving Mars Science Laboratory, touched down on the surface of the planet and started beaming back pictures of the stark landscape.
This was not one of those pictures. It's a prank.
The bogus image was assembled by combining two different photographs, the first an authentic view of a Martian sunset captured by a previous NASA rover in 2008, and the second an iconic still from the most popular science fiction film of all time, Star Wars.
For those who didn't know, Mars is part of our own solar system. There is only one sun.
More Mars hokum:
• Close Encounter with Mars on Aug. 27?
• Was Bigfoot Seen on Mars?
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Sources and further reading:
NASA Image of the Day: Sunset on Mars
NASA, 23 March 2008No, That's Not a Picture of a Double Sunset on Mars
Bad Astronomy, 13 August 2012
Last updated 08/17/12
