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One Find, Two Astronomers

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-saw-it-first dept.

Malacon writes "The New York Times is running a story about Debate Between Astronomers who both claim to have discovered the same object beyond Pluto, and almost the same size. Apparantly the US Astronomers had been tracking it for quite some time, but chose to not report it yet. They also claim the Spanish Astronomers stole data to make the find."

10 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Finders Keepers by fembots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Richard Pogge, an Ohio State astronomer who uncovered the apparent breach, said that scientists had long lived mostly successfully by a kind of honor system. Astronomers, he said, routinely serve on time allocation committees for telescopes and peer review panels without stealing one another's ideas. "It allows us to have an open, collaborative community,"

    So why can't Dr Brown (the USian) publish his discovery immediately and let the community to chip in and further investigate the finding?

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
    1. Re:Finders Keepers by zanderredux · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Maybe he was very serious about keeping scientific correction standards.

      But since the subject of the discussion is fame and merit, well, gotta agree: f**k scientific procedure. If you *think* you've got something new, just publish it away. You might be right and, in that case, you'll have fame and fortune. If not, lay low for a year or so, until people forget, and do it again, ad nauseam.

    2. Re:Finders Keepers by helioquake · · Score: 5, Informative

      Mike Brown makes some comments in his web page:

      On discovery of new planet

      I really shouldn't hotlink it w/o written consent from the author, but...heck, CalTech ought to be able to handle the load. Anyway, I make no extra comment of my own on this incident, but you guys might want to read up why the US guys did what and how they did.

  2. This could get ugly... by Eightyford · · Score: 5, Funny

    I admit that I've never seen two astronomers fight each other. But, I imagine it would be like watching two european Tour de France cyclists going at it, and we all know that aint pretty!

    --
    Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
  3. First post ? by karvind · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously these astronomers don't read slashdot otherwise they would tried for first post !!

  4. The Spanish Astronomers by jjeffries · · Score: 5, Funny
    Mod me down if you must, but The Spanish Astronomers is a kickass band name.

    That is all.

    1. Re:The Spanish Astronomers by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, NO ONE expects the Spanish Astronomers.

      Especially Michael Brown, apparantly.

      --
      Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
  5. Re:How the hell by bhirsch · · Score: 5, Informative

    The debate is who found it first. Brown says he has logs that Ortiz visited his web site with information on his telescope's position right before he made the discovery. I don't think its as much an allegation of stolen data as much as lack of integrity.

  6. Timeline... by Ariane+6 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mike Brown has placed a rather detailed timeline of events (from his perspective) on his webpage:

    http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/orti z/

    IMHO the ball is in Ortiz' court now...

  7. Re:How can this be an issue? by Darth+Cow · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you'll actually RTFA, you'll notice that the webserver hosting the information on where the telescope was pointing had the IP address of the Spanish researchers in its log files. More specifically, the Spanish astronomers jumped straight through to the page with the telescope coordinates listed for the particular object ID number that was also used in the published abstract. They didn't just randomly browse and chance upon it, but directly returned to the page multiple times within a day or so of when they anounced that they had "found" the object.

    So Dr. Brown was negligent in that the data was publically (albeit difficultly) accessible, but that doesn't mean that Dr. Ortiz's stealing of the data was at all moral. It's pretty sleazy to take credit for somebody else's hard work without even acknowledgements.