MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Scientist Etienne Klein apologizes for hoax post which showed pic of CHORIZO as Proxima Centauri

Klien who is director of research at the French Atomic Energy Commission claimed that the picture was taken by James Webb Space Telescope

A well-known French scientist was obliged to issue an apology for an image he claimed belonged to NASA's new space observatory but was actually a slice of chorizo. Etienne Klein is a distinguished scholar and director of research at the French Atomic Energy Commission.

Last Sunday, July 31, he tweeted what he purported to be the most astounding image ever captured of the star Proxima Centauri, taken by the state-of-the-art James Webb Space Telescope. According to the image, it depicts a ferocious red orb of cosmic energy that is speckled with brilliant solar flares that are raging throughout the skin of a nearby star.

RELATED STORIES

Trolls cry 'FAKE PICS' as Madonna flaunts FLAWLESS skin on night out with friends

Is Zendaya pregnant? FAKE TikTok post goes viral as fans lose their calm: ‘Y’all just tripping’

The tweet said: "Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us. She was taken by the JWST. This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day.

The image was reminiscent of well-known photographs of the sun acquired by the European Space Agency's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), which records in-depth solar flares on the exterior of the sun at a range of 75 million miles. The distance between the Earth and Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to it, is 5.9 trillion miles.
 
The majority of Twitter users seemed to be able to discern that the image sent by the prominent scientist was actually a portion of Spanish chorizo, but some were more naive.
 
While sharing the image of a star, a person commented, "The last photo of Proxima Centauri was this. This is a huge step forward."

"I can't tell if it's a prank or really Proxima that looks like a chorizo," wrote another. A third claimed that the image was fake: "It's a slice of chorizo."
 
Soon after this 'hoax post,' a social media outrage began on Twitter.
 
A user wrote: "Coming from a scientific research director, it's quite inappropriate to share this type of thing without specifying from the 1st tweet that it is false information when you know the speed at which false information spreads"
 
Someone else penned, "Indeed, there has been a loss of resolution, which makes the joke more believable and therefore more toxic!"
 
The joke, according to Klein, was merely intended to encourage people to think critically and avoid immediately accepting appealing pictures from those in roles of power. He recognized that several viewers had not grasped his joke, so he apologized in writing on August 4.
 
Klein wrote, "In view of some comments, I feel compelled to clarify that this tweet showing an alleged snapshot of Proxima Centauri was a form of amusement. Let us learn to be wary of arguments from authority as much as of the spontaneous eloquence of certain images….'"

"Well, when it's time for the aperitif, cognitive biases seem to have a field day... Beware, then, of them. According to contemporary cosmology, no object belonging to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere but on Earth," he added.
 
In another post described as a "scientist's joke," he said, "I come to present my apologies to those who may have been shocked by my prank, which had nothing original about it."

Before that, he published the image, titled "REAL this time," taken by the James Webb Space Telescope of the Chariot Wheel galaxy and its neighboring galaxies. Its caption read: "Located 500 million light-years away, it was undoubtedly spiral in its past, but took on this strange appearance following a furious galactic pile-up."

Klein is not the first renowned individual to create light-hearted puns like this. In a playful jab at NASA, Elon Musk released a meme on Twitter the previous month, poking fun at the JWST by contrasting a granite kitchen countertop with an image of space.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.