NASA Attempts To Pass Off An Ugly Potato As An Asteroid To Fool Fans
Image via Shutterstock
It’s a good thing brands have dialed way back on the April Fools’ jokes during the COVID-19 crisis. While NASA decided to post one this year, it’s a lighthearted one to take your mind off this turbulent period for a while.
For its Astronomy Picture of the Day on 1 April 2020, the space agency released what looks like another photo of the asteroid Arrokoth—formerly called Ultima Thule—the farthest object ever reached by mankind.
“Is this asteroid Arrokoth or a potato?” it asked. “Perhaps, after all the data was beamed back to Earth from NASA’s robotic New Horizons spacecraft, the featured high resolution image of asteroid Arrokoth was constructed.”
However, NASA added, “Perhaps, alternatively, the featured image is of a potato.”
The picture, snapped by Jack Sutton, is really of a deformed tuber, but it does resemble the space rock, which is made up of two objects too.
Apart from their places of origin—one of Earth and one of space—NASA asks that you “consider some facts.”
“Arrokoth is the most distant asteroid ever visited and a surviving remnant of the early years of our Solar System. A potato is a root vegetable that you can eat.”
The space rock is also “about 200,000 times wider” than a potato and “much harder to eat.”
Asteroid or Potato: https://t.co/7xthr4cKTH by Jack Sutton pic.twitter.com/8zZvIpnCn8
— Astronomy Picture Of The Day (@apod) April 1, 2020
[via CNET, images via various sources]
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