kepler telescope
Between 2009 and 2013, the Kepler space telescope stared at a single patch of the sky, searching for exoplanets. Around the star KIC 8462852, it appears to have spotted something much stranger. Artist illustration, NASA / Wendy Stenzel
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NASA Kepler Twitter account after apparent hacking

NASA Kepler Twitter account after apparent hacking

A screenshot of a strange tweet.

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft looks for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. This morning, Kepler’s Twitter account got hacked… and showed its 569,000 followers a moon.

The hacker(s?) pinned a tweet displaying a red underwear-clad butt, which has since been deleted, but not before showing up on the NASA homepage. Lots of social media users have been making space-butt jokes about the debacle.

NASA Kepler mission homepage after apparent Twitter hack

NASA Kepler mission homepage after apparent Twitter hack

The tweet appeared on NASA’s Kepler mission homepage as well.

We saw planet jokes,

https://twitter.com/johnwenz/status/750697478115119104/

moon jokes,

science communication jokes,

and of course, what’s a space butt picture without “Uranus?”

People really had at it.

NASAKepler Hacked on Twitter

NASAKepler Hacked on Twitter

Responses to the tweet in question when NASAKepler was hacked on Twitter.

Eventually the folks running the Kepler Twitter caught on…

And that only led to more butt jokes… or requests for more butts.

https://twitter.com/CosmicTropic/status/750703085329100800/

Shame on you, hackers, but thanks (I guess) for this space-butt-joke-filled Wednesday morning.

NASA
Space