STARFLEET SCIENCE DATABASE...
ORIGINAL EDITION: March-April 04
FILE NUMBER: 983242#A134 ALPHA
RESTRICTIONS: ACCESS GRANTED
ACCESSING...

NEW NEIGHBORS: SEDNA AND BEYOND...
  Scientifically known as 2003 VB12 (which is the designation of its discovery date), Sedna represents the most distant cold planetary body on our Solar System. Its proposed name is based in the Inuit goddess of the sea, which ruled everything over it and who according to legend, lives at the bottom of the artic ocean. 
   Preliminary data shows that Sedna has an extremely elliptical orbit that needs 10,500 years to go around the sun. Strangely, this stellar body process a reddish characteristic not typical for external planets or at least not common.  Its location remains uncertain, but the acquired information reveals that 2003 VB12 could be part of the Oort Cloud --a hypothetical region of space formed by proto-comets-- and has a diameter of 800-1100 miles, in fact, Sedna is even smaller than the moon!

  Still, scientists on Earth debate as new space bodies are found by the increase of technology in order to bring a better definition of "what should be called a planet". Such problem has been presented in the past, like the case of Pluto; which is in the line of been demoted to planetoid or similar classification. Now, Quaoar and Sedna defies the concepts of science in this aspect, making the necessity to "update" the planetary profile. This could mean that our Solar System will be changed from 9 planets to 8.
   And yet, the final frontier is awaiting us as new "solar systems" are found in regions never before observed by human eyes. Space programs like Space Telescope Hubble and the "Planet Hunters" are truly finding new strange worlds...and only God knows what else could be waiting out there.
  SEDNA PROFILE:
  Scientific name: 2003 VB12
  Common name: Sedna, Inuit goddess of sea
  Date found: November 14, 2003
  Spotted at: Palomar Observatory
  Size: 800-1100 miles in diameter
  Orbit time around the sun: 10,500 years
  Location: Near the Oort Cloud
   For more information about Sedna, please visit the following links (which are the main source for this facts):
THE REAL BAKU...
  Of course there is one! And is on planet Earth! Although we all know the Planet Ba'ku from Star Trek: Insurrection, few people recognize the similarity in name between the ringed planet and the birth place of birth of Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
  Our real Baku, also known as Baky is the largest city of Azerbaijan, near to Iran's borders. Located as a port on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, the city of Baku is known to have petroleum pipelines and a mass production of shipyards and factories producing metal cable and cotton, leather and food products. It served as part of the Transcaucacian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1922 after the Soviet victory against the prior anti-Bolshevik regime. It was not until 1991, after the end of the Soviet Union that Azerbaijan became an independent nation, which later on 1994 suffered terrorists attacks and massive demonstrations against the government. However, Baku lives proudly in the chess history as one of the few places to produce excellent chess players like the previously mentioned Grandmaster Kasparov and a young Grandmaster Teimour Radjabov of 15 years.
  If you want to know more about the real Baku, then visit the following sites:
TREKNOLOGY 101 PART I: FROM COMMUNICATORS TO CELL PHONES OR VICEVERSA?
  There is no doubt that cell phones today are a major necessity in our daily life, but how everything began? You could say that Star Trek made it possible... According to history, the first Cellular Radio Telephone --another name for cellular phone or cell phone-- was tested for commercial purposes on the late 70's by Illinois Bell in Chicago, Illinois. However, there is a possibility that like the current GPS (Global Position System) the cell phones were born under the guidance of the army in order to have a better way to communicate between its troops. In any case, have you notice the Star Trek legacy on them? Take for example the Sanyo 8100 PCS Vision model, don't you see the similarities with the classic Star Trek communicator? And yet it goes beyond it... According to one documentary that I saw a long time ago, it was an employee of Motorola --I believe-- that came with the "flip and open" design for the cellular phones; and he was inspired by TOS. So, what came first, the communicator or the cell phone? And remember that we are on the 21st century... In a way this could be a time travel paradigm. More Treknology 101 to come in our next edition.