soapbox

the norwich cop almost got me, but this time i saw him, right where the road becomes four lanes outside norwich, and slowed down to under 30mph from 35mph. slippery little devil, he is.

First seen a couple years ago by Palomar’s 48-inch telescope, but now confirmed, I guess they’re officially calling it the 10th planet, so that’s kinda cool. It’s at a way (44 degrees) inclined orbital angle (that’s probably not the correct astro-jargon) but the lower limit on the mass makes it still a bit larger than Pluto, and if the doggie hasn’t been kicked out of the club, I guess this dude “2003 UB313″ gets to hang with the big boys, too.

“This is the first object to be confirmed to be larger than Pluto in the outer solar system,” Michael Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, said Friday in a telephone briefing announcing the discovery. The briefing was hastily arranged after Brown received word that a secure website containing the discovery was hacked and the hacker threatened to release the information.