On February 17, 2026, Sky pulled off one of the most spectacular tricks. The moon slipped in front of the sun, but was unable to completely cover it, leaving a glowing golden halo hanging in the Antarctic sky. This phenomenon was so shocking that it took its name from one of nature’s most fundamental forces: the “ring of fire.”
Within hours, social media was flooded with breathtaking images of the eclipse. There was just one problem. Most of them never actually happened. Users across the platform quickly began flagging the images as fakes generated by overly sophisticated AI. And they were right.
So what was the actual “Ring of Fire” like? How does it compare to what the AI imagined? And how can you tell the difference? Next time I looked into it more closely so I wouldn’t be fooled.
What is the “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse?
Not all solar eclipses are created equal. Most people imagine a total solar eclipse. The moon completely obliterates the sun, turning the day into an eerie dusk. “ring of fire”, or annular solar eclipsesomething is different. This happens when the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, but at the far end of its elliptical orbit, a bit too far away to completely cover the Sun’s disk. The result is a thin halo of sunlight flaring up around the moon’s dark silhouette. The ring itself only lasts a few minutes. The February 2026 solar eclipse gave viewers just over two minutes of annular cycle before the moment passed.
Why photography is so difficult
Even if you’re in the right place at the right time (in the case of the February 2026 solar eclipse, that meant Antarctica), taking good photos can be difficult in itself. You can’t simply point your camera at the sun. Taking photos of a solar eclipse requires a special solar filter to protect both your camera’s sensor and your eyes. And finding the right exposure settings for an object as blindingly bright as the Sun takes experience and preparation. Then there’s the weather. The cloud cover ruined the plans of countless eclipse chasers who spent thousands of dollars traveling to the ends of the earth to photograph it.
Fake: what flooded the internet
All these obstacles result in a lack of authentic images. Within hours of February’s solar eclipse, AI-generated images flooded in to fill the gap, spreading across X, Instagram, and Facebook faster than fact-checkers could keep up. Below are some of the most popular ones.
Real: What the satellite actually captured
While the AI was busy creating a fantasy version of the eclipse, the actual images were being collected far above the Earth’s surface.
NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite used its solar ultraviolet imager to stare directly at the sun, capturing the moon’s silhouette as it slowly moved across the solar disk. Loose black shapes moved against a backdrop of winding plasma loops and magnetic fields glowing in ultraviolet light.
Separately, the South Korean weather satellite GEO-KOMPSAT-2A, which orbits some 32,000 miles above Earth, captured something even more humiliating. It is the moon’s shadow that falls on the South Pole like a bruise on the ice.
But perhaps the most remarkable view comes from ESA’s Proba-2 satellite. Prova 2 witnessed not one but four solar eclipses from its orbit, capturing a perfect ring of fire at 6:31 a.m. ET when the moon covered just over 93% of the sun’s disk.
This image, taken using the satellite’s SWAP instrument, observes the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light, peeling away the surface to reveal the corona in breathtaking detail.
It doesn’t look anything like the AI version, but that’s exactly what makes it extraordinary.
How to tell the real thing from the fake: A practical guide
The good news is that finding AI-generated eclipse images isn’t that difficult once you know what to look for.
- The first perk is color. Actual eclipse photos taken through solar filters have a characteristic warm orange, yellow, or sometimes greenish hue. This is an inevitable sign of the special equipment needed to safely photograph the sun. If your image has a bright crimson or deep purple ring shining against a pitch black sky, someone’s graphics card worked harder to create that ring than any camera ever.
- The next thing to check is the ring itself. The edge of the moon is not a perfect curve. There are peaks, valleys, and craters that create subtle irregularities along the inner border of the ring, a phenomenon photographers refer to as Bailey’s beads. Therefore, suspiciously smooth and perfect circles are a red flag.
- Third, look at the whole scene. Photos of real eclipses are rarely composed like movie posters. The sun is perfectly centered over the dramatic skyline, bringing everything into sharp focus and cinematic lighting. Physics can’t do things like movies.
- Finally, when in doubt, check the source. If an image appears on social media before a verified news outlet or space agency publishes its own image, treat it with skepticism. A reverse image search takes 10 seconds and saves you the hassle of sharing something that doesn’t exist.
Why this is important beyond eclipse photography
A faked solar eclipse photo may seem harmless, but in reality, it’s part of something bigger. Annular solar eclipses, aurora explosions, hurricanes seen from space, and volcanic eruptions are delivered online with waves of AI images that are faster and easier to share than the truth. This is especially frustrating when you consider what it takes to make a real one.
Satellite images of February’s solar eclipse represent decades of engineering, billions of dollars of investment, and the collaborative efforts of multiple national space agencies. NOAA, NASA, the European Meteorological Satellite Agency, and the Korean Space Program all pointed their instruments at the same moment and captured something truly irreplaceable. When AI-generated fakes flood the same feed that hosts this image, trust in that feed is lost. Viewers who have already fallen victim to convincing fakes become skeptical of anything that contains real data. Over time, this quietly reshapes what people think reality is, and worse, causes them to doubt reality even when it’s right in front of them.