Scientist Etienne Klein, head of the Commissariat of Atomic Energy from the French government made a joke and fooled everyone on social media.
One of the main voices of scientific research in France made many people believe that the photo of a salamiwas, in fact, an image produced by the James Webb telescope.
he posted an image macro of the sausage with the following caption: “Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light-years from us. It was captured by James Webb. This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day.”
Proxima Centauri was actually a beautiful and tasty Spanish chorizo.
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Check out Etienne’s post on social media.
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. pic.twitter.com/88UBbHDQ7Z— Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) July 31, 2022
In fact, the star of Proxima Centauri exists and is the closest to planet Earth. And despite being a red dwarf, it would look something like this by the James Webb telescope (below), not a salami.
Hubble telescope image showing Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us
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Etienne’s post, which was supposed to be a simple joke, ended up being taken seriously by some of his followers. After the confusion, the renowned scientist made comments warning that people don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
He further warned that just a symbol of verified or even a title of “science” is not enough to guarantee that something is true.
“In light of some comments, I feel compelled to clarify that this tweet showing an alleged photo of the Proxima Centauro was a form of diversion. We will learn to distrust both the arguments of authorities and the spontaneous eloquence of certain images…”, wrote the French researcher.
– Fake news motivated extremist group that killed Japanese in post-World War II Brazil
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“Well, at snack time cognitive biases seem to find something to have fun with… So beware of them. According to contemporary cosmology, there is no object belonging to Spanish charcuterie in the rest of the universe, except on Earth,” she added.
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