With captivating images of distant galaxies, it’s safe to say captured the imagination of the world. Recently it has also been the subject of a rather ungainly joke. On July 31, Étienne Klein, director of the French Commission on Atomic and Alternative Energy, shared an image he claims JWST has captured of Proxima Centauri, the closest known star to the sun.
“It was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope,” Klein told his more than 91,000 Twitter followers. “This level of detail… A new world is revealed every day.” Thousands of people posted at face value and retweeted with no comment.
A few days later, Klein admitted that what he shared was actually a photo of a slice of chorizo on a black background. “According to certain comments, I feel obliged to determine that this tweet showing an alleged photo of Proxima Centauri is a joke,” Klein said. . “Let us learn to be wary of arguments from positions of power as well as the spontaneous rhetoric of certain images.”
Klein later apologized for the prank and told the French news agency (through the Evil behavior) He has posted images to educate the public about the threat of fake news. “I also think that if I hadn’t said it was a photo of James Webb, it wouldn’t have been as successful,” he noted. After everything was said and done, Klein shared a recent photo that JWST took Trolley Wheel Galaxy. This time, he quickly assured his followers that the photo was authentic.
All products recommended by Engadget are curated by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
