NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble, released its first color images on July 12.
Since then, some have had fun deceiving Internet users with alleged photos of the device, such as physicist and popularizer Etienne Klein, tells the
Huffington Post
.
In a tweet on Sunday, the director of research at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) posted an image purporting to be a "photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light-years away from U.S ".
The scientist notably specified that the snapshot would have been taken by the famous telescope of the American space agency.
“This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day”, he also commented.
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
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Spanish charcuterie
Finally, after reading some reactions, Étienne Klein provided some details.
“According to contemporary cosmology, no object belonging to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere but on Earth,” he wrote mischievously in a second tweet.
The image does not indeed represent Proxima Centauri but… a slice of chorizo.
I come to present my apologies to those whom my hoax, which had nothing original about it, may have shocked.
He simply wanted to urge caution with images that seem eloquent on their own.
A scientist's joke https://t.co/wHiJWxscxq #Astronomy via @LePoint
— Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) August 3, 2022
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This “form of amusement”, as he later described it, would have been proposed by the physicist in order to invite his subscribers to show critical thinking.
"Let's learn to be wary of arguments from authority as much as the spontaneous eloquence of certain images," he said in another tweet, before apologizing to those who were "shocked" by the hoax.
The James Webb Telescope continues its publications, including the posting of a photo of the Cartwheel galaxy on Tuesday.
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