Fact Check: No, National Geographic did not tweet this regarding the milky way, viral tweet is altered

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A screenshot of a tweet is going viral on social media. The post purports to show a tweet made by National Geographic on Milky Way galaxy. The alleged tweet reads: The edited tweet reads, “Bright, white and associated to milk, a white substance. Is the way our own galaxy is named, racist?”.

Vishvas News investigated and found the post to be fake. National Geographic did not post this alleged tweet about the milky way, the screenshot has been altered from another unrelated tweet.

Claim

A post shared on Facebook by a user named Jacob Arthur reads: “Even the galaxy is racist now…” The post purports to show a screenshot of a tweet made by National Geographic on Milky Way galaxy. The tweet reads, “Bright, white and associated to milk, a white substance. Is the way our own galaxy is named, racist?”.

The archived version of the post can be read here.

Investigation

Vishvas News reviewed the Twitter account of National Geographic @NatGeo using the Twitter Advanced Search of InVid tool but did not find any such tweet as claimed in the viral post.

We search on Google using appropriate keywords and found a blog by National Geographic captioned “Our Milky Way Galaxy Is as White as, Well, Milk” on January 12, 2012. Check here

It wasn’t exactly the same as in the fabricated tweet.

We found the same photo as in the viral tweet in the unedited National Geographic post tweeted on May 28, 2021. The tweet discussed that radio waves detected from the M81 galaxy. Check here

Vishvas News contacted National Geographic regarding the same. As per the email response, the viral post is edit and falsely attributed to National Geographic.

The post is shared on Facebook by a user named Jacob Arthur. When we scanned the profile of the user, we found that the user profile was created in October 2006 and the user is based out of North Carolina.