Wish Upon a . . . Chorizo?!

According to a French scientist, the star closest to our own sun is actually . . . a chorizo?! Also, in breaking news, Lateenz just discovered the Concha Planet. 

By Lindsay López-Isa Lamken

The James Webb Space Telescope (the “JWST”) is the biggest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space, and it sits about 1 million miles away from Earth.  On July 12, NASA started releasing a series of incredibly detailed images of the universe taken by the telescope’s infrared cameras.

Two weeks later, Étienne Klein, director of France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, tweeted a photo with the following caption (translated from French): “Picture of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years away from us. It was taken by the JWST. This level of detail… A new world is unveiled everyday.”

Klein later admitted that what he said was an image of Proxima Centauri, was actually a picture of a slice of chorizo on a black background. Klein explained that he intended the tweet as a joke and as a reminder that we should all be aware of the power of pretty pictures to make us believe things that we want to be true (a.k.a., cognitive bias): “Let’s learn to be wary of the arguments from positions of authority as much as the spontaneous eloquence of certain images.”

Good point. And because pictures can make us believe things we want to be true, Lateenz is officially announcing our discovery of the Concha Planet.