The French scientist had to give an explanation after tweeting a photo of a sausage slice, claiming it was an image of a distant star taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Étienne Klein, famous physicist and director of France’s Commission for Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy, shared a startling image on Twitter last week. In his tweet, he wrote «Image of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us. It was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. This level of detail… Every day a new world is revealed.”
Photo of Proxima du Centaure, l’étoile la plus proche du Soleil, situated 4.2 année-lumière de nous.
Elle a été prize par le JWST.
Ce level of details… A nouveau monde is revealed jour après jour. pic.twitter.com/88UBbHDQ7Z—Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) July 31, 2022
The image actually corresponded to a slice of Spanish chorizo against a black background. Some of his 91,000+ followers immediately got the joke and started tweeting responses, including salami, sausage, and all kinds of cold cuts. However, thousands of others retweeted the image taking it seriously.
“No objects related to Spanish cured meat exist anywhere other than Earth.”
Klein later admitted in a series of tweets that the image was actually a sausage slice. According to the scientist, “When it’s cocktail hour, the cognitive bias seems to find a lot to enjoy… Watch out. According to contemporary cosmology, no Spanish sausage-related objects exist anywhere other than Earth.
After facing some criticism, Klein was forced to explain the joke, adding a word of caution to social media users: “In light of certain comments, I am forced to specify that this tweet showing an alleged image of Proxima Centauri was a joke. Let us learn to distrust the arguments of positions of authority as well as the spontaneous eloquence of certain images”.
In an attempt at retaliation, he posted an image of the spectacular Cartwheel galaxy, assuring his followers that this time the photo was authentic.