Social media users spread erroneous claim of distant city lights found by NASA | Fact check
Corrections & Clarifications: This story was updated May 10 to clarify that a TikTok video used to create a viral false claim on Facebook was originally created to debunk that claim. This update does not affect the rating for this item.
The claim: NASA discovered city lights on planet 7 trillion miles away
An April 14 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows a woman talking about a supposed NASA discovery in front of a screen that shows a planet illuminated by lights.
"I'm sure you've heard the news of NASA discovering city lights on a planet 7 trillion miles away," the woman says in the video, which is a clip from a video originally posted on TikTok in January.
The Facebook post garnered more than 40,000 shares in three weeks. Other versions of the post were also shared on Facebook.
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Our rating: False
A NASA spokesperson said the administration has not discovered any such thing. A NASA article published a few months before the TikTok video describes an infrared emission discovered on a cosmic body much farther away.
No city lights discovered by NASA
Lynn Chandler, a NASA spokesperson, told USA TODAY the claim is false.
The TikTok video shown in the post was actually debunking the city lights claim, not making it. The full video shows the woman, TikTok user @modernday_eratosthenes, went on to criticize articles that made or perpetuated that claim without any factual basis.
"My video was about debunking that myth and my frustration with accounts spreading misinformation," the TikTok user said in an email to USA TODAY. "I was not in any way supporting the claim."
The short clip from TikTok shared on Facebook and elsewhere, however, gave a different impression by only quoting the woman's description of the claim.
The only news resembling this claim can be found in an article published by the James Webb Space Telescope team on Jan. 9.
The article announced NASA's discovery of a new brown dwarf, which is a type of cosmic body formed in the same way as stars but without the mass to radiate light. The telescope discovered infrared emissions from methane that were likely caused by energy in the dwarf's upper atmosphere, which NASA found "unexpected" because of the dwarf's cold nature and lack of a host star.
The article doesn't mention anything about discovering city lights or signs of life.
Instead, the article speculates that the emissions were caused by one of two phenomena. The first possibility is an internal auroral process similar to Jupiter or Saturn, where energetic particles from the sun are blown into space, captured by the planet's magnetic fields, and collide with gas molecules, creating "eerie, dancing curtains of light." The second possibility described is an external interaction with interstellar plasma or a nearby active moon.
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The brown dwarf is unlikely to be habitable, as it was found to be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius. This is much hotter than the temperature required to sustain life, which ranges from about -15 degrees to 115 degrees Celsius, according to the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
The article also says the brown dwarf is about 47 light-years away, which is much farther than the 7 trillion miles claimed in the video. One light-year is approximately 5.8 trillion miles, according to NASA.
USA TODAY reached out to the users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
@modernday_eratosthenes, May 10, Email exchange with USA TODAY.
Lynn Chandler, May 3, Email exchange with USA TODAY
NASA, Jan. 9, NASA’s Webb Finds Signs of Possible Aurorae on Isolated Brown Dwarf
NASA, accessed May 3, What is a light-year?
Lunar and Planetary Institute, May 3, 2005, What Makes a World Habitable?
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No NASA discovery of city lights on distant planet | Fact check
