Elon Musk posts call to ‘Occupy Mars’ alongside a picture of the moon

Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk really wants to colonize Mars. It’s a lofty, not impossible, endeavor for sure, but a good start would be being able to identify the red planet in the first place.

This Sunday afternoon, Musk posted an image to Twitter that read “Occupy Mars” alongside a picture of an orange-red celestial body. To the untrained eye, nothing seemed out of order.

But science writer Upulie Divisekera immediately pointed out that the image didn’t include a picture of Mars. The image is actually the moon during a total lunar eclipse.

“Hey Super Space Genius,” she wrote in a retweet of Musk’s tweet. “that’s the moon in a total lunar eclipse.”

 

An image of the January 20-21 total lunar eclipse posted on earthsky.org confirms that the image is of the moon, not Mars.

In the comment thread beneath Musk’s initial tweet, most didn’t realize the screwup, but one person pointed it out and actually got Musk to reply.

The moon masquerading as Mars also appears on a T-shirt line bearing the “Occupy Mars” logo, although it’s not known if the T-shirts are endorsed or affiliated with Musk.

As of this writing, Musk’s tweet is still up and collecting Twitter mockery.

https://twitter.com/Bitcoin_ator/status/1142909926144126976

Featured image via Twitter

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.