With its captivating images of distant galaxies, it’s safe to say that the James Webb Space Telescope has captured the world’s imagination. He was also recently the subject of a not-so-charming joke. On July 31, Étienne Klein, the director of France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, shared an image he claimed the JWST captured of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun.
“It was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope,” Klein told his more than 91,000 Twitter followers. “This level of detail… Every day a new world is discovered.” Thousands of people took the post in stride and retweeted it without comment.
A few days later, Klein admitted that what he shared was actually a photo of a slice of chorizo on a black background. “In light of certain comments, I feel compelled to specify that this tweet showing an alleged image of Proxima Centauri was a joke,” Klein said. certain images”.
Klein later apologized for the joke, telling French news channel Le Point (via Vice ) that he posted the image to educate the public about the threat of fake news. “I also think that if I hadn’t said it was a James Webb photo, it wouldn’t have been as successful,” he noted. After all was said and done, Klein shared the recent image JWST captured of the Cartwheel galaxy. This time he was quick to assure his followers that the photo was authentic.
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