Considerable clouds this morning. Some decrease in clouds later in the day. High near 80F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..
Tonight
Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm late. Low 66F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Last month, NASA began releasing images from the new James Webb Space Telescope, providing those of us on Earth with the deepest view of the universe yet recorded.
The telescope makes use of infrared light, capable of passing through clouds of cosmic dust and gas that would blur images produced by visible light, making possible stunningly clear views of some of the universe’s earliest star formations.
The awe-inspiring images have prompted many to re-post the photos on their social media accounts and wax poetic on whatever insights about the time/space continuum the space telescope imagery may have brought to the surface.
Last week, a flurry of retweeted space telescope photos with captions gushing their praise prompted British theoretical astrophysicist Peter Coles to put tongue in cheek and take action. He tweeted a close-up photo of a round slice of reddish orange chorizo sausage in a black background with a caption reading “These #JWST images just get better and better.â€
The tweet immediately went viral.
“I thought a few people might find it funny, but it took off beyond my expectations,†Coles later wrote in his “In the Dark†blog. Most got the joke — the tweeted image was actually that of a Mexican sausage slice, not an astronomical object — but some thought Coles was trying to pass off the slice of breakfast meat as a real space telescope image of a deep space object.
The following day, French physicist Etienne Klein, the research director for France’s Atomic Energy Commission, posted what appeared to be the identical chorizo photo on his Twitter feed. Accompanying it was an embellished caption identifying it as a photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
“With this level of detail...a new world is revealed, day after day,†Klein wrote.
With a Twitter following much larger than Coles, Klein soon found himself being accused by media outlets around the world of practicing “fake science†by trying to foist off a (pre-owned) photo of a sausage slice as a recent space telescope image of a star.
“Star Trick: Prof fools world with pic of new planet — it’s just a slice of chorizo,†claimed the headline for a front-page story in the Daily Star of London, while a CNN Online headline claimed “Top scientist admits ‘space telescope image’ was actually a slice of chorizo.â€
“I’m not sure what the moral of this story is,†said Coles, “other than if you make a joke, no matter how obvious it is, there will always be people who take it seriously.â€
To appease those who took his repurposed version of Coles’ joke seriously, Klein felt compelled to state the obvious: “According to contemporary cosmology, no object related to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere other than on Earth,†he said.
Klein then posted an authentic space telescope image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, a circular star structure with spoke-like connectors. To me, a structure at the “hub†of the cartwheel looked remarkably like a sunnyside-up fried egg.
It would probably go good with chorizo.
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