Chorizo, not star: French scientist shares photo, urges people to be critical of online images

A French scientist has issued somewhat of an apology after sharing what he claimed to be an image of a star taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

But the reddish, round object in the picture wasn’t out-of-this-world at all — it was a slice of chorizo.

Etienne Klein, research director at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, posted the photo to Twitter on July 31, writing in French that what was pictured was Proxima Centauri — the closest star to the sun, located 4.2 lightyears away from us.

However, in the same Twitter thread, Klein revealed that the photo was not that of a star — instead, it was a food of the Spanish charcuterie variety.

He used the opportunity to urge people to be critical of images that seem “eloquent” on their own.

In a follow up on Aug. 3 , Klein once again stressed the importance of being cautious, saying he was also apologizing to those who may have been shocked by the hoax.

NASA’s newest multi-trillion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021. It was built for NASA in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.

The first images of deep space taken by the telescope were released in July, with the stunning photos showing a glimpse of the universe many people had never seen before.

The Webb telescope’s use of the infrared light spectrum allows it to see through the cosmic dust and capture light from the far corners of the universe.

“There have been images that are taken in lots of different colors and there have also been spectra, which is when you take the light and you spread it out to look at all of its different colors, and different elements will glow in certain colors — that also tells you what things are made out of. So it’s not just the images that are so exciting, it’s also those sorts of data, the spectra,” Sarah Gallagher, the science advisor to the president of the Canadian Space Agency, previously told CityNews.

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