Astronaut shares lit-up pic of India; turns out, it was not of Diwali – again!

A gorgeous picture of a lit-up India as captured from space had gone viral just a while back during Diwali. The photograph that was shared by astronaut Paolo Nespoli was believed to be authentic by a lot of people. But a little of digging has revealed that it was clicked nearly a month before Diwali was celebrated in India.

Remember how almost every year there is a stock image of a lit-up India captured from space that does rounds on social media? And remember how every time it is proved to be fake? Well, something similar happened recently except this time far too many people were ‘fooled’. Recently, a breathtaking picture of ‘India during Diwali as seen from the cosmos’ had gone viral on social media. The picture was shared by astronaut Paolo Nespoli (Hive account@astro_paolo), with the message: “The Hindu Festival of Lights, starts today #HappyDiwali to everyone! #VITAmission.” Since it was taken by an astronaut, the picture was automatically assumed to be authentic and was widely shared (this even made it to various headlines, including that of indianexpress.com). And though the picture is indeed beautiful there is a slight problem — it’s a picture of India from space alright, but it’s not a Diwali night photo! Yes, you read that right.
This was the tweet that had gone viral and has more than 5,000 retweets at the time of writing