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Surprises

by Dennis Yang

Mon, Aug 1st 2005 2:38am





Announcement of 10th Planet Hastened By Hacker

from the et-hacked-home dept

As previously reported, CalTech astronomers announced the discovery of a 10th planet this week. The planet is yet to be named and even its exact size is still unknown. It's all very exciting but it was strange that the announcement seemed a touch hasty, especially since the planet was detected back in January (from pictures taken in 2003, no less). It's normal for astronomers to wait to announce a discovery until the full details have been locked down. So, why the hasty announcement this time? Well, it could be that a hacker had infiltrated the astronomers' secured site and threatened to leak the discovery -- thereby forcing the astronomers to make two big announcements last week. So, kudos to the astronomers for the discovery, but maybe they should look into some better security measures.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 5:01am

    No Subject Given

    Hack the Planet

     

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  2.  
    identicon
    Galley, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 6:07am

    No Subject Given

    I've read that the planet is to be called Xena, after Lucy Lawless' TV character.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    dorpus, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 7:33am

    Yeah but what about women's shelters

    Does the planet have a really big crater that looks like a black eye? Does it live in darkness and silence, or is it ready to take back the night?

     

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  4.  
    identicon
    dorpus, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 7:41am

    Re: Yeah but what about women's shelters

    Or is the planet made to feel small and worthless, as if it is the property of a bigger planet? Do fractures crisscross its surface, or more dangerously, has it become pocked with craters?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 8:24am

    Caltech, not CalTech

    Lowercase t, not uppercase.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    zaphod, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 8:49am

    Re: Yeah but what about women's shelters

    speaking of planets, what's the weather like on yours?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    identicon
    Nick, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 9:00am

    Huh?

    Why is it so fashionable to keep all this data on web servers? It seems evrey other day some web site is broken into and leaked some serious info. Are these people stupid?
    We are talking about people that are privy to information such as 10th planets and all you would figure they would store it somewhere else ... guess not...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    dorpus, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 9:25am

    Re: Yeah but what about women's shelters

    I just read news about an alien planet called Sharon Stone, which had major solar flare activity and extensive scarring. Alien creatures have an addiction to tanning salons, but it has its risks. The alien is said to have jumped out of the tanning salon screaming.

    http://www.walkerplus.com/movie/news/news2000.html

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Ivan Sick, Aug 1st, 2005 @ 3:40pm

    Re: Yeah but what about women's shelters

    go back to FYAD

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  
    identicon
    Karl Musser, Aug 2nd, 2005 @ 6:05am

    update

    The discoverer's description of what happened can be found at the bottom of the page at http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/

     

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  11.  
    identicon
    jonny, Sep 28th, 2006 @ 3:02am

    jonny

    jonny

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  12.  
    identicon
    jonny, Sep 28th, 2006 @ 3:02am

    jonny

    jonny

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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