[meteorite-list] FW: 10th Planet Controversy (not really OT)

From: Robert Verish <bolidechaser_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Aug 10 16:17:13 2005
Message-ID: <20050810201705.82076.qmail_at_web51703.mail.yahoo.com>

---------- Forward Message ----------


http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/10th_planet_controversy.html

10th Planet Controversy
Universe Today
August 9, 2005

Summary - (Aug 9, 2005) Jose Luis Ortiz had no idea
that his announcement on July 29th of the discovery of
a big Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) would kickstart one
of the most confusing and controversial days for the
astronomical community in recent years.
The astronomer from Sierra Nevada Observatory, Spain,
sent an e-mail detailing his findings with the subject
"Big TNO discovery, urgent" to a mailing list for
astronomers. A few hours later, reports surfaced on
some astronomical websites indicating that the object
found by Ortiz, designated as 2003 EL61, was twice as
big as Pluto, but they were quickly dismissed by
Ortiz.

Full Story - At the same time, another team led by
astronomer Mike Brown of Caltech reported they had
been observing 2003 EL61 for almost a year, but were
waiting to analyze data from the Spitzer Space
Telescope before announcing the discovery.

"There is no question that the Spanish group is
rightly credited with discovery," Brown stated on his
personal website. "Even if they had found the object
only this year and announced its existence, they would
still be considered the rightful discovers. We took a
chance that no one else would find it while we were
awaiting our observations from the Spitzer Space
Telescope. We were wrong! And we congratulate our
colleagues on a very nice discovery."

But just hours after that, Brown announced to the
media the discovery of two other big TNOs, designated
as 2003 UB313 and 2005 FY9. Regarding the first one,
he stated that it's about three times as far from the
Sun as Pluto, and "it's definitely bigger" than the
ninth planet.

Brown's team discovered 2003 UB313 on January 8th, but
wanted to further analyze their observations. However,
they "were forced to announce their results on Friday
evening because word had leaked out" he said.

"In mid-July, short abstracts of scientific talks to
be given at a meeting in September became available on
the web. We intended to talk about the object now
known as 2003 EL61, which we had discovered around
Christmas of 2004, and the abstracts were designed to
whet the appetite of the scientists who were attending
the meeting. In these abstracts we call the object a
name that our software automatically assigned, K40506A
-the first Kuiper belt object we discovered in data
from 2004/05/06, May 6th-. Using this name was a very
very bad idea on our part."

"Unbeknownst to us, some of the telescopes that we had
been using to study this object keep open logs of who
has been observing, where they have been observing,
and what they have been observing. A two-second Google
search of "K40506A" immediately reveals these
observing logs".

According to Brown, from the moment the abstracts
became public, anyone with an Internet connection and
a little curiosity about the "K40506A" object could
have found out where it was.

Brown was quick to point that he believes the fact
that this discovery happened days after the data were
potentially available on the Web is a coincidence. But
"some people in the community privately expressed
their concerns to me that this coincidence was too
good to be true and wanted to know if there was any
possible way that anyone could have found out the
location of our object," he added.

At this point, Brown contacted Brian Marsden at the
International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center
(MPC). Brown told him confidentially about the two
objects not yet announced (2003 UB313 and
2005 FY9), expressed his concerns that someone might
be able to find their data and attempt to claim credit
for discovering these objects,
and sought advice.

Marden found that someone had already used the website
of the MPC to access past observations of one of the
objects and predict its location for that night. The
past observations were precisely the logs from the
telescope that Brown's group had been using. "We had
no choice but to hastily pull together a press
conference which was held at 4pm on the last Friday in
July, perhaps the single best time to announce news
that you want no one to hear", said Brown.

However, some astronomers have a very different
opinion about Brown's announcement.

"The group of Dr. Brown decided, as in previous cases,
not to make public its detection until they finished
their observations and their research work, and until
the object was in conjunction with the Sun so that
other people couldn't observe it," stated Dr. Javier
Licandro in an e-mail sent to a Spanish-speaking
astronomy mailing list. Licandro works
at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes and the
Instituto de Astrof?sica de Canarias, in Spain.

"They did it before with Sedna. But this time, by
taking this 'doubtful' risk, they lost all the rights
on the discovery of that object. Even more, their
policy is, at least, criticizeable."

"Due to the detection of 2003 EL61 by Ortiz et. al.,
and because of the fiasco that this has represented
for Brown et. al., they decided to go public 'ipso
factum' with their discoveries of two other objects
that they knew at least from six months ago, 2005 FY y
2003 UB313," said Licandro.

Contacted by AstronomiaOnline.com
<http://www.astronomiaonline.com>,
Brown wouldn't want to elaborate on Licandro's
comments. "I like Javier. It is unfortunate he feels
the need to make such remarks," he said.

But it didn't take long for Ortiz to air his own
feelings about the situation. "With technology many
times more advanced than our own, Brown's team had
discovered three big objects many months ago, but they
were hiding their findings from the international
scientific community, as they did before with Quaoar
and Sedna," he declared to the Spaniard paper ABC.

"This secrecy was useful to Brown, as it allowed him
to study the object in detail and exclusively. But his
actions harm science and don't follow the established
procedures that imply notifying the existence of a new
object to the astronomical community as soon as it's
discovered," added Ortiz.

Brown indicated that he didn't get that statement from
Ortiz himself, so he would not want to comment on it
directly. However, asked again by astronomiaOnline
<http://www.astronomiaonline.com>,
he said: "In general, there certainly are people who
have that opinion, to which they are entitled. I,
however, cannot think of any area of science in which
an 'established procedure' is to announce a discovery
with no time for thought and analysis. Anyone who
feels otherwise is welcome to go and find these
objects themselves -as did Ortiz- and get the credit
for their own discoveries."

Written by Ricardo J. Tohm?
<mailto:rtohme_at_astronomiaonline.com> for
Astronom?aOnline <http://www.astronomiaonline.com>. If
you want to read the original article in Spanish,
click here
<http://www.astronomiaonline.com/noticias/noticias.asp?id=126>.
Received on Wed 10 Aug 2005 04:17:05 PM PDT


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