A French scientist faked a photo of a star with a sausage

Photo chorizo game in the middle quickly went viral through social networks given that the author of the same claimed that it was an image of a star close to Sun captured no more and no less than a space telescope James Webb. It was obviously a fake or, as the person in charge put it, a “joke”.

deceptions Internet They serve both to generate laughter for how ridiculous they can be, and to irritate some users. This, oddly enough, spawned both. French scientist Etienne Kleinresearch team leader Commission on Atomic Energy and Renewable Energy (CEA), posted this image through his official account Twittercausing all sorts of reactions.

This is not Proxima Centauri, this is a sausage

In the description, the investigator mentioned that it was a photograph. Proxima Centauri one of the stars in the constellation Centaurus closer to the Sun, and this could only be achieved with the help of a new space telescope POT. “This level of detail… A new world is opening day by day”wrote to accompany the photograph.

Of course, the photograph was not the result of careful astronomical observations or some kind of graphical modeling technology, in fact it was simply chorizo placed on a black background. It didn’t take long for the post to go viral. social network and currently has about 10.9 thousand “likes” and more than 1400 retweets.

Etienne Klein apologized for the photo

The volume of this publication was such that it began to appear in fact checking various French media and a large number of users criticized the scientist for such jokes, despite the fact that he was an expert in science, for which klein He decided to apologize for what had happened.

“I came to apologize to those whom my joke, in which there is nothing original, could offend. I just wanted to call for caution with images that seem eloquent on their own. I was surprised by the scope it took: I thought the image would be immediately identified as a fake. And when I saw that the great journalist from BFMTV was delighted and that he was in danger of spreading it, I told him that it was a joke. He took it with great humour.”the scientist wrote.

Despite apologizing to his research team and the public for the deception and its rapid spread, klein didn’t delete my original chorizo ​​photo post from my account Twitter. As it was said later, “Such false news can also have educational value”although he did not elaborate on exactly how he could do it.

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