A Saturday

Mutterings continued.

Not much happened today. I've offered to assist with the GRADS newsletter, so the VP and I had a meeting this arvo to discuss content. It's a damn sight easier to put together than the Zoo newsletter - four pages, black and white, and the President wrote most of it.

I've offered to help out with What the Butler Saw (Sept 29 - Oct 8, at the Dolphin). No, not props, just front of house. It's got a great cast, including the gorgeous Jenny McCann, Grant Malcolm and Tony Petani, both of whom were in R and G a couple of years ago.

The solar system is getting crowded - "A US astronomer said today he had discovered a 10th planet in the outer reaches of the solar system that could force a redrawing the astronomical map.

If confirmed, the discovery by Mike Brown of the respected California Institute of Technology would be the first of a planet since Pluto was identified in 1930 and shatter the notion that nine planets circle the sun.

"Get out your pens. Start rewriting textbooks today," said Mr Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy, announcing what he called "the 10th planet of the solar system", one that is larger than Pluto.

"It's the farthest object ever discovered to orbit around the sun," Mr Brown said in a conference call of the planet that is covered in methane ice and lies nearly 15 billion kilometres from Earth.

"I'd say it's probably one and a half times the size of Pluto," he said from CalTech, based in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, referring to what until now has been the most distant planet in earth's solar system.

Currently about 97 times further from the sun than the Earth, the celestial body tentatively called "2003-UB313" is the farthest known object in the solar system, and the third brightest of the Kuiper belt objects."