Hacker forced publication of 10th planet

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-08-01 03:14am

The Inq wrote: Hacker forced new planet discovery out of the closet

10th planet found two years ago

By Nick Farrell: Monday 01 August 2005, 07:39

BOFFINS WHO discovered that there was a 10th planet in our solar system, had been sitting on the news for years until a hacker turned over their servers.
Michael Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, announced the discovery over the weekend. But according to the South African Sunday Telegraph, here, the briefing was hastily arranged after Brown received word that his secure website containing the discovery had been hacked. The unnamed hacker was threatening to release the information.

It transpired that Brown and his friends had been sitting on the information since 2003 when they snapped it with a 122cm telescope at the Palomar Observatory. However they couldn’t confirm much about it until it was analysed again last January. So in the time honoured tradition of boffins everywhere they decided to keep the data from the common people until they knew a bit more.

Brown said that data is still being processed and it will take at least six months before astronomers can determine the planet’s exact size. The planet seems to be about 1.5 times the size of Pluto, which is usually dubbed a planetoid because it is so small.

The find should further stuff up modern astrologers - they still have not got the hang of Uranus. µ

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2005-08-01 03:16am

Yes, I read that on Space.com Saturday. Terrible.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2005-08-01 04:12am

Mange the Swede wrote:Yes, I read that on Space.com Saturday. Terrible.

How is this terrible?

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-08-01 04:19am

Seggybop wrote:
Mange the Swede wrote:Yes, I read that on Space.com Saturday. Terrible.
How is this terrible?

They knew about this for TWO years and said nothing?

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-08-01 04:31am

Yup, it seems there IS a Tenth Planet Conspiracy.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2005-08-01 04:34am

So my secret lair has been gone public thanks to a lowlife hacker? Curses!

Instant Sunrise · Post by **Instant Sunrise** » 2005-08-01 04:36am

I think the guy was smart for holding off.

His initial observations showed what could be a 10th planet. He decided tho hold off on publishing it until he had enough data to make a solid conclusion, a conclusion like a tenth planet is one that you want to be absolutely fucking sure of before publishing it.

Son of the Suns · Post by **Son of the Suns** » 2005-08-01 05:22am

How horrible, a scientist actually waited to confirm his discovery before announcing it to the world. For shame.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-08-01 05:36am

Tiger Ace wrote:
Seggybop wrote:
Mange the Swede wrote:Yes, I read that on Space.com Saturday. Terrible.
How is this terrible?
They knew about this for TWO years and said nothing?

Oh, come the fuck on. It's a rock that's half as big again as Pluto, boo hoo. Most likely there are literally billions like it. My worldview has been fundamentally altered.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2005-08-01 06:09am

Tiger Ace wrote:
Seggybop wrote:
Mange the Swede wrote:Yes, I read that on Space.com Saturday. Terrible.
How is this terrible?
They knew about this for TWO years and said nothing?

This isn't uncommon you realise? When the first scientists were discovering planets around other stars they would sit on the information for a year or so to make sure that a) no one else had already discovered it and b) they weren't wrong and look like idiots.

ClaysGhost · Post by **ClaysGhost** » 2005-08-01 09:33am

Original article wrote: So in the time honoured tradition of boffins everywhere they decided to keep the data from the common people until they knew a bit more.

I think the Palomar team should email the author every time they think they've found something that might be interesting. "Look, we've found a dot on this frame that's slightly brighter than we'd expect!"

I'm sure he'd learn to love them for it.

Tiger Ace wrote: They knew about this for TWO years and said nothing?

Two years is only about four (successful) telescope time proposal deadlines. Reporting every little thing that researchers happen to have a hunch about would be time-wasting behaviour. One astronomical object didn't get published for about ten years after the initial discovery*; partly because there wasn't much observational information on it (those telescope time proposal deadlines again, plus you need a very good science case to be successful), partly because it wasn't obvious that it was interesting, and partly because there were N other objects discovered after it that were definitely interesting. The publication of it changed the life of nobody, not even astronomers working in the relevant field.

Looking at his listed publications over the past two years, it seems that Dr Brown has been working mainly on the average properties of the Kuiper belt and Sedna. I don't see why he should have dropped everything to work on this single object, when it probably wasn't even obvious what it was for a great part of the two years.

* Then again it depends what you mean by "discovery". Identification might be a better word.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2005-08-01 10:35am

"Boffin"?

*looks it up*

Oh, an absent-minded professor-type.

Anyway, I can't really blame them. It's important for scientists to double-check everything so they don't look like idiots.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-08-01 11:43am

What's really terrible is that hackers can even access this sort of shit. Someone needs to tighten security. A rival professor coudl easily steal someone's research this way.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-08-01 12:35pm

Tiger Ace wrote:
Seggybop wrote:
Mange the Swede wrote:Yes, I read that on Space.com Saturday. Terrible.
How is this terrible?
They knew about this for TWO years and said nothing?

You can take off the tinfoil hat now. For a body that far out, you need at least a couple years of observation and analysis to determine if you really have something there, since the orbital period of such a body is measured in centuries.

When observing something like that, you have to first confirm two things:

1) The object is actually a comet/asteroid/KBO, rather than something than something more local, like artificial satellites; or something more distant, like a variable star or a new nova/supernova.

2) You have to then confirm that you've actually discovered a new object, since there are tens of thousands of known natural objects that orbit the sun, and it would be rather embarrassing, not to mention harmful to your career if you were to have inadvertently rediscovered a previously known object and then attempted to fob it off as something new.

Determining the object's orbit is about the best way of doing this, since we have ephemeris tables computed for most every body we've discovered that orbits the Sun. And again, for an object this distant, you have to take your time observing it so you can calculate a rough orbit and see if it matches anything that already exists.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-08-01 04:49pm

Am I the only one who finds the article (and site) rather satirical?

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-08-01 05:20pm

McC wrote:Am I the only one who finds the article (and site) rather satirical?

The Inq? Its a tabloid/tech reports/commentary on the tech world site.

SoX · Post by **SoX** » 2005-08-01 07:31pm

Haven't there been about 5 "10th Planet" discoveries over the past decade or so? Come on, they're not planets, they're big lumps of rock. All the terrestrial planets are within the orbit of Jupiter, any Planet further out is a gas giant and then big rocks probably pulled out of the Oort (i think its called) cloud by passing large bodies. When i say passing, i mean jsut a slight tug from something large to send it on it's merry way into our solar system.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-08-01 07:33pm

Ah. In that case it's just stupid.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-08-01 07:41pm

There's been loads of them found anyway, publically admitted since before 2 years ago. Check these out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1419508.stm Tuesday, 3 July, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1347031.stm Thursday, 24 May, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2306945.stm Monday, 7 October

For example.

Gustav32Vasa · Post by **Gustav32Vasa** » 2005-08-01 08:07pm

So Sedna isnt a planet?

How large is Sedna anyway?

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-08-01 09:01pm

Sedna is not a planet. As for its size, most accounts put it between 800 and 1100 miles, with nothing really certain.

Instant Sunrise · Post by **Instant Sunrise** » 2005-08-01 09:06pm

If Sedna is a planet, wouldn't Ceres also be one?

A planet in a largeish debris feild.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2005-08-01 09:10pm

SoX wrote:Haven't there been about 5 "10th Planet" discoveries over the past decade or so? Come on, they're not planets, they're big lumps of rock.

It just happens that this new big lump of rock is bigger than Pluto and is the most Pluto-like object found (e.g. the only KBO besides Pluto to have a methane ice surface), meaning the debate about Pluto and the definition of 'planet' is getting started again. IIRC Sedna was the biggest before this one and was only ~70% the size of Pluto.

All the terrestrial planets are within the orbit of Jupiter, any Planet further out is a gas giant and then big rocks probably pulled out of the Oort (i think its called) cloud by passing large bodies. When i say passing, i mean jsut a slight tug from something large to send it on it's merry way into our solar system.

Since that dismisses Pluto as not being a planet, you can see the trouble over these definitions. I think you meant the Kuiper Belt, not the Oort cloud.

SoX · Post by **SoX** » 2005-08-01 09:51pm

Winston wrote:Since that dismisses Pluto as not being a planet, you can see the trouble over these definitions. I think you meant the Kuiper Belt, not the Oort cloud.

Aye, i couldn't remember which one, knew it was one or the other.

Winston wrote:It just happens that this new big lump of rock is bigger than Pluto and is the most Pluto-like object found (e.g. the only KBO besides Pluto to have a methane ice surface), meaning the debate about Pluto and the definition of 'planet' is getting started again. IIRC Sedna was the biggest before this one and was only ~70% the size of Pluto.

I vote for Pluto being renounced as a planet.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2005-08-03 08:09am

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:You can take off the tinfoil hat now. For a body that far out, you need at least a couple years of observation and analysis to determine if you really have something there, since the orbital period of such a body is measured in centuries.

Sorry to come into this late, but another reason is discussed on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy page (an awesome resource for a lot of anti-psuedoscience stuff related to space, by the way). If scientists didn't have exclusive access to their data for a reasonable period of time, in order to analyze it, then it would remove the incentive for researchers to go through the lengthy proposal process in the first place - someone could just come along and swoop up on their data if they were better prepared to process it. More on why Hubble data is withheld for one year.