Space may be closer than we think, perhaps even sitting at a deli table.
A French scientist has had to apologize for his spicy space joke after tweeting a picture of a slice of chorizo, claiming it was a distant star captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Étienne Klein, a physicist and director of France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, shared the photo of the cured meat slice on Twitter last week, explaining the “level of detail” it provided.
“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,” read a translation of the tweet. “This level of detail… Every day a new world is discovered.”
Photo (REAL this time…) of the Chariot Wheel Galaxy and its companion galaxies, taken by the JWST. Located 500 million light-years away, it was undoubtedly spiral in its past, but took on this strange appearance after a furious galactic crowding. pic.twitter.com/vmiDjU1Gjt
— Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) August 3, 2022
In some follow-up tweets, Klein apologized, informing followers that smoked sausage is strictly earthbound and a “form of fun.”
“Well, when it’s cocktail hour, cognitive bias seems to find a lot to enjoy… Watch out for that. According to contemporary cosmology, no object related to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere other than on Earth “, he wrote.
“In light of some of the comments, I feel compelled to clarify that this tweet showing an alleged snapshot of Proxima Centauri was a form of fun,” he said in another tweet. “We learn to distrust the arguments of authority as much as the spontaneous eloquence of certain images.”
He later tweeted an image of the Chariot’s Wheel galaxy, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, assuring followers that it was “real” this time.
“Photo (REAL this time…) of the Chariot Wheel Galaxy and its companion galaxies, taken by JWST. Located 500 million light years away, it was undoubtedly spiral in its past, but took this strange appearance after a furious galactic crowding,” the scientist wrote.
Images from the James Webb Space Telescope went viral in July when the first images were released in July, providing never-before-seen images of the universe and its countless galaxies.
The $10 billion telescope, launched on December 25, 2021, was a joint project involving NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency and has already traveled 1 million miles through space .