Étienne Klein, a celebrated physicist
and director at France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy
Commission, shared the image of the spicy Spanish sausage on Twitter
last week, praising the “level of detail” it provided.
“Picture of
Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years
away from us. It was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. This level
of detail… A new world is unveiled everyday,” he told his more than
91,000 followers on Sunday.
The post was retweeted and commented upon by thousands of users, who took the scientist by his word.
Things, however, were not quite as they seemed.
Klein
admitted later in a series of follow-up tweets that the image was, in
fact, a close-up of a slice of chorizo taken against a black background.
“Well, when it’s cocktail hour, cognitive bias seem to find plenty
to enjoy… Beware of it. According to contemporary cosmology, no object
related to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere else other than on Earth”...<<<Read More>>>...
