Ted the Penguin

10th Planet?

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology are reporting that they’ve discovered a 10th planet. No news yet on what they’re gonna call it.

From the article:

“It’s icy, rocky and bigger than Pluto. And according to scientists who found it orbiting the sun, it’s the newest planet on our solar system’s block. The planet — the farthest-known object in the solar system — is currently 9 billion miles away from the sun, or about three times Pluto’s current distance from the sun.”

Personally, I think the most interesting part is the fact that they only announced it because somebody hacked the website where information concerning the discovery was being kept and threatened to release the data. Why did where they keeping the information to themselves? Perhaps it was because they wanted to confirm their findings before telling the world; perhaps it was because they were timing the release of the data to correspond with a new grant application. Or maybe just because they could. Who knows.

I just wonder what’s become of the world today where we have to keep such information to ourselves to protect either intellectual or economic value; we should be sharing this sort of information with each other. If human nature prevents such a society from being formed naturally, so be it; but it doesn’t mean that we can’t try a little harder to make something like that work.

Oh well, “the greater a man’s talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, … and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual? … Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.”