hey FYI any time you see a “photo” of an exoplanet, it’s an artistic concept and/or a bot generation. we don’t have the technology to directly image exoplanets in high-resolution. we can only speculate based on basic data about their approximate mass and chemical composition. https://twitter.com/paintwater_boba/status/1350560502112526342

I know the OP is a kid but this tweet has been liked over a million times and unironically RTed a quarter of a million times. OP is keeping the tweet up for clout even after acknowledging the “photos” are CG. this compounds public misunderstanding of how astronomy works.

“who cares, it looks cool”

I care, and scientists care, and teachers care, because “who cares, it looks cool” is just another way of saying “facts are irrelevant and I don’t have to use critical thinking skills”

y’all are out here thinking planets are literally magic

don’t say a thing is a photo when it isn’t a photo. stop it. stop doing that. check before you tweet. there is a straight line from “who cares” to “anything is real if I say it is” to, uh, authoritarian anti-science regimes smashing windows in the Capitol

“lmao you really got from that tweet to fascism????”

yes. that is what a mass failure to care about facts gets us.

care about facts. thank you.