There鈥檚 no stopping a good conspiracy theory. For over 30 years, NASA has faced down allegations that it faked the moon landings, and now it is the turn of the Chinese.
In October, the Chinese spacecraft Chang鈥檈 1 entered lunar orbit, and last week the country released its first image of the lunar surface. Within hours of the picture鈥檚 release the internet rumour mill leapt into action on various Chinese blogs and forums, casting doubt on its validity and saying it bore an uncanny resemblance to a picture released by NASA in 2005.
The Chinese space agency replied that the pictures are similar because they are of the same part of the moon. NASA鈥檚 experience with conspiracy theories suggests that denying the rumour will only serve to keep it running. Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for the lunar probe, more or less guaranteed this by adding: 鈥淭here is absolutely no forgery.鈥�
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