Brian Cox
Professor Brian Cox speaks at his seminar Exploring Outdoor Space during Advertising Week Europe on March 25, 2015, in London, England. (Photo by Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images for Advertising Week)

The Huffington Post took some stern criticism from a popular physicist Wednesday for a blaring headline saying he endorsed the idea of "alien life on Pluto." Earlier this year, the site aggregated an article from the New York Times, in which Professor Brian Cox of the University of Manchester talked about the possibility of organic life on the dwarf planet. HuffPost's spin on his remarks to the Times was decidedly less nuanced: "Alien Life On Pluto Exists, Says Professor Brian Cox."

Cox took to Twitter Wednesday -- many months after the January article -- to call it "hyperbolic s--t."

Shortly after Cox's jibe, the article sported a new headline closer to its source material at the Times: "Alien Life On Pluto May Exist, Says Professor Brian Cox." The text of the article still references Cox as saying that there is a possibility of a subsurface ocean on Pluto and that "you could have living things there."

Cox is well-known in Britain as a public intellectual and a TV presenter for several scientific and educational shows. Neither Cox nor Huffington Post responded to request for comment.