Physicist Apologizes for Fake Photo Prank
1 min read
French physicist Etienne Klein has “blasphemed” his Twitter followers by sharing a photo of a slice of chorizo, claiming it will be a new image captured by the James Webb Telescope.
The director of research at the French Commission for Alternative Energy and Atomic Energy decided to throw the joke on July 31, according to The HuffPost France.
In the photo caption, the scientist mentioned that it was a photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. “This level of detail…a new world is unfolding day by day,” Klein wrote on Twitter.
The photo went viral on social media, so Klein posted a tweet apologizing for the joke, calling it a “scientific joke.”
According to Klein, the post was a retelling of an earlier joke made by fellow astrophysicist Peter Coles. The physicist adds that although many noticed it right away, “it also took two tweets to clarify.”
“In this kind of social network, fake news is always more successful than real news,” Klein told HuffPost.
“Musicaholic. Thinker. Extreme travel trailblazer. Communicator. Total creator. Twitter enthusiast.”
