Amitabh Bachchan shares Jupiter video with “5 Planets Aligned” tweet; Fact Check

Posted by: Arun Nag March 30, 2023

Hindi film field’s top actor Amitabh Bachchan shared a video on March 28, 2023 on Twitter handle showing a zoomed-in view of stars and planets seen in the night sky with a claim that the video shows an alignment of five planets in the sky – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus, a unique event to watch in the sky. He wrote: “What A Beautiful Sight…! 5 Planets Aligned Together Today… Beautiful And Rare… Hope You Witnessed It too ..”.

T 4600 – What A Beautiful Sight…! 5 Planets Aligned Together Today… Beautiful And Rare… Hope You Witnessed It too .. pic.twitter.com/eEob2dBxAJ

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) March 28, 2023

It was true that on the evening of 28 March, five planets – Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Uranus – did align along with the Moon and according to the US space agency NASA, such alignment is occurring in the sky after ten years. Similar video has been shared widely here and here and has gone viral on Youtube Shorts too.

FACT CHECK

Since the video clip differs from the authentic videos on social media, the Digiteye India team took it up for fact check and found that a rare celestial event on the said day was true and news to this effect was seen all over the authentic media outlets.

Alignment of planets on march 28, 2023 with the right location. (Image credit: Starry Night Pro 7 )

However, the alignment of the planets with respect of the moon does not match the video shared or posted by Bachchan, that is also going viral in Youtube Shorts. In fact, this was from the video uploaded six years ago showing the planet Jupiter in alignment with its four moons, namely, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Some visuals of the video in Bachchan’s tweet show that of Jupiter with its planets that was actually shared six years ago, if shown vertically. And it had happened prior to June 30, 2016.

Secondly, the position of moon in the zoomed-in video posted by Bachchan shows moon’s position way above and doesn’t match the alignment shown elsewhere on Space.com.

Hence, in the viral video shared by Bachchan on Twitter and others on Youtube Shorts shows only Jupiter planet with its moons and not the real alignment of the five planets March 28, 2023. Here’s how they would have appeared on March 28:

Don’t miss it🚨
Catch all the 5 planets together! On March 28, 2023, #Mercury, #Venus, #Mars, #Jupiter, and #Uranus will be aligned🌌 in an arc form along with the #moon 🌕 after sunset constituting a rare astronomical event pic.twitter.com/JSrhzvtfyO

— ann marie (@annmarie309) March 28, 2023

Further, Devansh Cholera, former secretary of the Public Astronomical Observatory, Goa, confirmed to the media that the zoomed-in visuals shared by Bachchan shows Jupiter planet with it’s four moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto and not Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus as claimed.

Claim: Amitabh Bachchan shared video claiming five planets can be seen aligned as shown.

Conclusion: Misleading as the video shows Jupiter planet with it’s four moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Rating: Misleading —