14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, on Tuesday, space agency NASA tweeted a photo taken by astronaut Scott Kelly from aboard the International Space Station and made a big deal of how the view showed the Sun illuminating good old Earth.
“What's our new cover pic? The sun & Earth, as seen by @StationCDRKelly from the @Space_Station. Enjoy! #YearInSpace,” NASA captioned the image.
Except it wasn't the Sun that astronaut Scott Kelly photographed from aboard the orbital complex. It was the Moon. Sure, the orb appeared a wee brighter than it usually does when we look at it at night, but that's still no excuse for the confusion.
Of course, it didn't take space enthusiasts very long to spot the mistake and kindly inform NASA that it had, well, messed up. Soon enough, the tweet was taken down and a new one emerged to take its place. The same photo, but a different caption.
“Correction: that's not the sun illuminating the Earth. It's the moon, seen by @StationCDRKelly from @Space_Station.” Notice the slightly toned-down enthusiasm in this second post.
In fact, if you look through the lines, you can almost see the space agency blushing in embarrassment.
Granted, to err is human and we should be more understanding of this incident. All the same, this doesn't change the fact that having proper astronomers mistake the Moon for the Sun is pretty darn amusing.
Correction: That's not the sun illuminating the Earth. It's the moon, seen by @StationCDRKelly from @Space_Station. pic.twitter.com/Amkzqkj3lI
— NASA (@NASA) September 9, 2015
@NASA If that were the sun, we wouldn’t be seeing the stars around it, right? Unless you’ve invented a completely new kind of camera.
— Michael Howard (@mmbman) September 8, 2015
@NASA @StationCDRKelly @Space_Station The Sun? It is an overexposed Moon!
— Ángel Gómez Roldán (@agomezroldan) September 8, 2015