Allegation:
An actual photo taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.
Evaluation:
Context:
real photo [pictured above] It wasn’t pulled by JWST and it won’t be pulled in 2024 either. The image that went viral is a digital drawing that accurately recreates the photograph.
Essayist Annie Dillard once wrote of a solar eclipse: “What you see in an eclipse is completely different from what you know.” Maybe that’s why the best part of total solar eclipses is looking at the absolutely stunning photos floating around social media.
After the eclipse that occurred in North America on April 8, 2024, Posts about X (formerly Twitter) went viral claiming that NASA’s own James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) had the best photo.
(X user @avenaim)
At the request of readers, Snopes investigated the origins of the photo. We found a photo very similar to the one posted online; This is the photo used in our header image. However, this photo was not taken by NASA’s JWST and was not of the 2024 solar eclipse. A reader tipped us off that the image featured in the viral post was actually a copy of the photo, which we discovered was created by an artist named Cathrin Machin. Here’s what we found:
First of all, we researched social media profiles We thought the scientists and astronomers who took the photo – from NASA and JWST – would be proud of the telescope’s capture and to share about this photo.
Count us out of this! Webb’s infrared optics detect extremely weak heat signals, and the Earth, Moon, and Sun are too bright and hot for us to look at them. That’s why we have sunshades: https://t.co/tTGIWqFAz8 https://t.co/wRTZNO4i6u
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) April 3, 2024
Instead, we found posts from the official JWST X account explaining that the Webb telescope cannot look at the sun because it is designed to detect and display much fainter signals. JWST is specially designed with a sunshade to prevent sunlight from interfering with the instruments. This means the image could never have been taken by Webb.
We then crawled the image into reverse image search engines like TinEye and Google Lens, which gave us mixed results. While TinEye found no matches, Google Lens found a few matches, many of which we noted were released before the April 8 eclipse. So, in addition to not being from JWST, the image is not of the 2024 North American sunshine. eclipse.
It actually shows a solar eclipse in North America; This is just an eclipse that occurred on August 21, 2017. Many of the links provided by a Google Lens search show that the image is from Dr. Dr., a filmmaker and astrophotographer. It is attributed to Sebastian Voltmer.
By looking at Voltmer’s social media, we confirmed that he took the original photo and that the best version of the photo came from his Flickr page. According to details provided in the Flickr thread, Voltmer captured the image with a telescope in Wyoming using a photographic technique called HDR, which combines several different images taken with different exposure lengths to capture the best detail in high light/dark contrast images. When Voltmer shared the photo social mediarotated it 90 degrees to match the vertical aspect ratio.
Total Solar Eclipse HDR image taken with my D800 through the C80 ED refractor telescope.
Even with the naked eye, when I looked at the star Regulus, I could see the earth brightness (peripheral vision).Picture: @SeVoSpace
On April 8, the great total solar eclipse will pass the North… pic.twitter.com/DJYz8UjWPs
—Dr. Sebastian Voltmer (@SeVoSpace) April 6, 2024
In 2020, Australian artist Cathrin Machin took Voltmer’s social media image and redrew it in painstaking detail over 10 days. When comparing the version posted on Machin’s Instagram page to the versions that went viral after the 2024 eclipse, the colors clearly matched. We suspect Machin’s image is mirrored and filtered, which may be why we can’t find him using reverse image search sites like TinEye.
So no, the image in question was not taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. However, don’t consider this a discredit on JWST’s limitations; Instead, think of it more as a tribute to astrophotographers like Voltmer, the telescope that has changed our perception of astronomical imaging since its introduction. Capture an absolutely stunning photo from the Earth’s surface, and top it off with talented artists like Machin.
Resources:
“ABOUT.” Website: Dr. Sebastian VoltmerJuly 14, 2011, https://voltmer.de/about/.
Cole, Margherita. “Artist Spent 10 Days to Recreate Spectacular View of Solar Eclipse.” My Modern InventionFebruary 1, 2021, https://mymodernmet.com/cathrin-machin-solar-eclipse-digital-painting/.
Google Lens. https://lens.google.com/search?ep=gsbubb&Hl=en&re=df&p=abrfa8PDJ-ELTDBOFYWO LWFBZ6KEN01ZC85CUNVP2HZ7JWN_ow7639FPB_ULEOKFRWO4TSK08xVB9ZDZBEHF0E1J 67LJLXFXFX5QVU31NPZVTZSPU69GJMHUMMJMQKUR3Q0_R0LZ4G%3D%3D#LNS 1WVDVDE5EQXLAQZFOT0DAAKXUWTNOREKZTLRGAE9stjnuklmt0hsa1frmdbosfjzvdnkagewa udwxsldgwxsxbımuwn2nlywfiltı4ytutndjimy04yjddildliztı3mjıymtezmyjdxsxudwxslg51BGWSBCXBNVSBCXDWXSLFTDXV0 =. Access date: 9 April 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/Avenaim/Status/1777442521209282862/Photo/1.” X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/avenaim/status/1777442521209282862/photo/1. Access date: 9 April 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/NASAWebb/Status/1775629331357642755.” X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1775629331357642755. Access date: 9 April 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/SeVoSpace/Status/1776736821617319995.” X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/SeVoSpace/status/1776736821617319995. Access date: 9 April 2024.
instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C5b41osy-C2/?hl=tr. Access date: 9 April 2024.
instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CC3S10SgYoc/?img_index=1. Access date: 11 April 2024.
Solar Shield Webb/NASA. https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/sunshield.html. Access date: 9 April 2024.
TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/search/ea998d3f04d504ce8c8ace8ca9be5800e321d6e0?sort=score&order=desc&page=1. Access date: 9 April 2024.
Voltmer, Sebastian. Corona World Light 2017. photo, September 6, 2017. Flickrhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemovie/36659081780/.