A French scientist has apologized after tweeting a photo of a piece of chorizo ​​sausage, claiming it was an image of a distant star captured by the James Webb Telescope.

Etienne Klein, a physicist and director of France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, shared a picture of a traditional Spanish sausage on Twitter last week, praising the "level of detail" it provides.

Photo of Proxima du Centaure, the closest star to the Sun, located 4,2 light years from us.
Elle a été prize par le JWST.
Ce niveau de détails… Un nouveau monde se devoile jour après jour. pic.twitter.com/88UBbHDQ7Z

— Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) July 31, 2022

"Image of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4,2 light-years away. It was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. This level of detail... Every day a new world is revealed," he posted on Twitter, where he has over 91.000 followers.

The post was retweeted and commented on by thousands of users, who believed it was indeed a distant star.

Klein later admitted that the image was actually a close-up of a piece of sausage against a black background.

"In light of certain comments, I feel obliged to state that this tweet, which shows an alleged image of Proxima Centauri, is a joke. Let's learn to be careful with accepting arguments from a position of authority, as well as with the spontaneous eloquence of certain images," he wrote, and later apologized.