Slashdot | One Find, Two Astronomers

Nick wrote:
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.

Link to NYT story - you have to subscribe for free and I don't want too - at
http://science.slashdot.org/article..../09/14/2359253

Hi all,

I think this shows a few possible flaws in the professional
astrophysical community (of which I am a member). For many years the
whole of the community has been run upon trust and good will, with many
joint discoveries being attributed to multiple parties.

As for the Xena issue, I think that this might be a wake up call to the
community. I'm not making any statements here as to who (if anyone) is
in the wrong, let's get that clear straight away. It seems obvious that
something strange has happened, and it now looks like checks and
double-checks are being performed to find out exactly what happened.

Is it possible that this is all just a misunderstanding? Well, yes it
is! However, it is also possible that something else happened that might
cause a bit of embarassment to the community (as a whole).

I'll be watching this closely that is for certain. Recently the Physics
community was rocked by a certain scientist fabricating results to
maintain a high publication rate. I hope that the astrophysical
community doesn't have to go through something similar.

Just my tuppence worth!
John