A prominent French physicist has been forced to apologize for an image he says was taken from NASA’s new space telescope but is actually part of the Chorizo.
Etienne Klein, renowned philosopher and director of research at the French Atomic Energy Commission, tells his followers that “no creature belongs to the Spanish Charcuterie anywhere but on Earth.”
On Sunday, he posted a tweet claiming it was the latest stunning image from the James Webb Space Telescope of the star Proxima Centauri.
The image claims to show a red ball of angry cosmic energy, filled with a storm of shining sun that roams the surface of a nearby star.
“Image of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, 4.2 light-years from us,” Klein wrote on Twitter.
It was picked up by JWST. This level of detail… new worlds are being revealed day by day.
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This is the image that Etienne Klein, renowned physicist, philosopher and research director at the French Atomic Energy Commission, posted on Twitter claiming – jokingly – it is the latest stunning image from the advanced James Webb Space Telescope of the star. Proxima Centauri
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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of our sun on January 8, 2022
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Etienne Klein, renowned philosopher and director of research at the French Atomic Energy Authority
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This image is similar to the popular image of the sun taken by the European Space Agency’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), which captures details of a solar storm on the surface of our star at a distance of 75 million miles.
Proxima Centauri, the star closest to Earth, is 5.9 trillion miles away.
While most Twitter users can realize that the photo posted by the eminent physicist is actually a piece of Spanish sausage, others are more naive.
‘The last photo of Proxima Centauri is this,’ said one user, posting a photo of the distant star. “This is a huge step forward.”
Another wrote: ‘I don’t know if it’s a joke or if Proxima really looks like Chorizo’.
However, Twitter user Ned Boeuf was not fooled. “Fake, it’s a piece of chorizo.”
Then the reaction started on Twitter.
An angry response came: “Coming from the director of scientific research, it is totally inappropriate to share this kind of thing without determining from the first tweet that it is false information when you know how quickly misinformation spreads.”
A Twitter user is impressed by the huge step forward in space telescopes represented by JWST
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This user is more skeptical but still doubts if it’s a joke or serious
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However, not everyone is deceived
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The backlash started with users accusing Klein of spreading misinformation
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“In fact, there is a loss of resolution that makes the joke more believable and therefore more toxic!” Post write.
Klein acknowledged that many users did not understand his jokes, which he said were only meant to encourage people to question and not automatically accept the “fluent picture” of those in power.
On Wednesday he wrote his apology.
He wrote on Twitter to his 89,200 followers: ‘Given some of the comments I feel compelled to explain that this tweet showing the alleged Proxima Centauri shot was a bit funny.
“Let us learn to be wary of arguments from authorities as much as from the spontaneous rhetoric of certain images…”
“Well, when it comes to appetizers, it seems like my cognitive bias has a field day…
Elon Musk posted this meme last month making fun of JWST’s astronomy photo
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Beware of them. According to contemporary cosmology, there are no objects belonging to the Spanish Charcuterie anywhere but on Earth.
“I’ve come to offer my apologies to those who may have been surprised by my joke, which is actually nothing,” he said, calling the post a “scientist joke.”
Prior to this, the James Webb Space Telescope published a capture of the Cartwheel galaxy and its companion galaxy, (“currently real”).
“It lies 500 million light-years away, and is undoubtedly a spiral in its past, but it took on this strange appearance after the massive galactic buildup.”
Last month, Elon Musk posted a meme mocking JWST, comparing the granite slab in the kitchen to a photo of space, in a lighthearted joke aimed at NASA.
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