Picture of distant star turns out to be chorizo

[Kyng]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-05/f.../101305334

A senior French scientist has apologised after tweeting a picture which he said was from the James Webb Space Telescope — but which was not quite what it seemed.

Etienne Klein, a director at France's Atomic Energy Commission, posted a picture purportedly showing Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun.

"This level of detail ... a new world is revealed every day", he enthused in the tweet, sent to more than 90,000 followers on Monday.

However, Professor Klein has now admitted that the glowing celestial body shown was in fact nothing more than a slice of Spanish chorizo sausage.

Apologising for what he described as "a scientist's joke", he said his aim had been to remind people to "be wary of arguments from people in positions of authority".

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I mean, it does look a little bit like a star ! But, I'd be surprised if a professional astronomer was fooled by it... they'd probably be able to point out several things wrong with it (that a layperson like myself wouldn't necessarily notice ).

Still, it is a funny joke... and there may be a serious point about cognitive biases here!

[Moonshroom]

Oh, that guy is a GENIUS XD

[Pyrite]

I'm by no means an expert on astronomy (more than I was due to where I work though ) but when I saw it the first thing I thought of was a chorizo slice. The main issue in my opinion is the solid black background - that just seems so unnatural for space.

[Kyng]

I'm by no means an expert on astronomy (more than I was due to where I work though ) but when I saw it the first thing I thought of was a chorizo slice. The main issue in my opinion is the solid black background - that just seems so unnatural for space.

There's actually a reason why pictures of close-up objects in space typically don't have any stars in the background :

https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/wh...-them.html

Basically, the stars are so far away, and so faint, that they only show up if you have a long exposure time. The only time you'd go for such a long exposure is when you're taking a picture of the stars themselves... if you're taking a picture of a nearer object, then that'll show up with a shorter exposure (and indeed, if you use a long enough exposure to show up the stars in the background, then the foreground object will be overexposed!)

[Pyrite]

To be fair, that makes a lot of sense, kind of like focusing in on one specific object in a microscope.

The other issue I have with it is the brightness is fairly constant throughout the chorizo. Granted, that sort of thing can be toned down manually, but most pictures of stars have bright spots or at the very least a glow around the edge. I'm sure there's examples where this isn't the case though!

But anyway, it was a clever trick that would fool a good 50% of people, I'm sure.