Spacewalk Shown on Facebook Live is Fake? Here's the Truth

There was a barrage of spacewalk 'live feeds' from Facebook yesterday, Oct. 27, to the surprise of many. A lot of people have seen the footage streamed live on Facebook by social media pages such as Unilad. Apparently, the NASA "spacewalk Facebook" live is fake.

Although there are comments saying that it could be a studio set-up or a setting for a virtual reality video game, those speculations are also false. The 'live' part may not be true but it is an actual spacewalk video from space, it was just not 'LIVE' as some pages claim it to be.

The video shows astronauts performing their duties outside the International Space Station (ISS) with the Earth as their background. Those familiar with NASA live feeds can tell the authenticity of the video if they are familiar with how the video looks, how the sounds from the astronaut's oxygen systems were captured and how the Earth appeared on the videos.

The questionable part is that there is no scheduled spacewalk as confirmed by NASA and other space agencies worldwide, so how come there was a 'LIVE' spacewalk video being streamed on Facebook Live? Reports say about 26 million viewed the video from Viral USA's page while Unilad's video garnered about 17 million views.

Apparently, the video, a real spacewalk, was taken in 2013 when Russian astronauts Oleg Kotov & Sergei Ryazanski performed their duty outside the International Space Station (ISS). Despite the confusion caused by the Facebook LIVE claim, a NASA official told BBC that the agency was surprised by the interest that the public has shown towards space science specifically with astronauts performing a spacewalk.

The agency also said that for photos, videos and other interesting multimedia stuff, anyone can visit NASA TV and their social media handles (they have a lot) to learn more about space science. Facebook, however, already established that the Internet connectivity from Earth to the ISS and back is feasible. Earlier this year, Facebook CEO himself Mark Zuckerberg facilitated a 'Q and A' with an astronaut aboard the ISS using Facebook LIVE.

So the next time anyone is eager for some cinematic view from outer space, seek the help of NASA TV for some timely and genuinely captivating videos streamed live from the outer space.