How do you measure his level of attractiveness Darke?
By his material possessions?

By his mental accuity?

Or by his superficial apperance?

You seem very sure that he is attractive and I wondered which of thse things made him so appealing?

I think it is a mixture of all of those things.
I don't put a higher value on any of them really.
I like the fact that he's good looking, but then maybe I am the only one that would think so? I don't know.
I love the fact that he can make interesting conversation without making me feel like an idiot, and I appreciate the fact that he has a job, because that shows that he's reliable and at least in some ways grown up and responsible. The car is not racey or huge, and his house is a semi in a cul-de-sac, it's nice but not a mansion.
I think he's good boyfriend material, though I know Faith is going to make sicking up noises when she reads this.

I just sent an email off to the European Space Agency about the brown dwarf COROT-exo-4b.story here
While I was thinking about the properties of the brown dwarf it occured to me that it might actually be the center of a dead binary star. The extreme density of the planet (twice that of lead) lent itself to being a mixture of the rare elements that are often created in the center of stars as they start to burn out.
Most of the time stars like this collapse and the solid ball in the middle bouces the implosion back outwards with an unimaginabley huge explosion known as a supernova but in binary systems the larger star strips solar matter away from the smaller one gradually reducing its gravity.The speed of the orbit of exo4b could be explained by the reduction in the orbital distance, mass and gravity of the smaller star.
Obviously its a thin possibility but it could be that all the solar matter was stripped away by the larger star before it could nova.

It also occured to me that if this is the case it would be an almost unique opportunity to study the centre of a dead star.
I doubt I am the first to think of this possibility but it would be cool to spot something the scientists haven't.

Zygo

Ooooooh you're a nerd too Zygo?

Got a car? Better yet got a sixpack??

well I have a car and if you put the contents of the six pack in a carrier bag then yeah.....

Zygo

What he doesn't say here is that the six pack is not muscles, it's not even beer.
No Zygo's six pack contains................... Vimto

well at least I just smell fruity for ever if I spill it, instead of like stale beer....beer is yucky stuff ..bleh.

Honestly ladies and gents don't do it.
try spilling some beer then have a good sniff a few hours later ...would you really want to smell like that by the end of a night out.....blech I wouldn't

Zygo

I've never understood the grand thing of beer..It smells nasty and from personal curiosity I tasted it and BLAH! now a nice glass of wine is good. Not for drunken purposes of course, but just a small glass every now and then is nice..

Space the original frontier.
These were the voyages of the Starship Kindred.
It's multi billion year mission to understand physical life forms.

Are we nearly there yet?????

I have been reading some of these COROT articles. One said that a new space telescope has actually discovered organic chemicals in the atmosphere of one planet. Apparently they are using these observations as a precurser to sending probes into some these distant solar systems.
I wonder how long it will take them to find life now.

Wild

Does everyone read this stuff except me?

If you want him, go for it. He could and has done a lot worse. No offence my lovely friend.
He's a great bloke, and you would be wonderful for him.
Best thing is when you two got married we'd be related, though having to call you Aunty Darke might be a bit much.


And no Lady C you're not the only one who doesn't read this stuff. I wouldn't get this out of choice but I have it force fed to me.

Just thinking about what Wild said.
If we can see planets that have organic molecules in their atmosphere now, then any advanced race is going to be able to see us too. They are going to be able to see far more than we can and will no doubt have been listening to any transmissions coming from the planet for quite some time.
I know the radio waves won't get there for a while but if they are more advanced than we are, they are likely to space telescopes much further away from home than we do too, and so we will be even easier to see and listen to.
Slightly creepy thought huh?

Zygo

Creepier thought, what if the waves they did pick up were the internet, and those same life forms we're talking about were reading our conversation and laughing.

Wolfbrother

That is an excellent theory Zygopterix, and a very distinct possibility, though at this point there has not been enough data analysed to report a definite diagnosis.
It is also thought that this star could be a 'cannibal' star.

See here
cannibal star

This is an old story from 2006, but not much more has been discovered about these 'cataclysmic variables' since then. They are very rare, and the brown dwarfs of the pairing are too faint to see directly. Their presence has always had to be calculated by a process of measuring the mass and radius implied from the changes in the light emitted by the white dwarf, making it impossible to gather reliable data on them with the technology we have had available.
Whatever this turns out to be, this would be the most in depth study of such an anomoly that has ever been accomplished. It is really very exciting.

I'm afraid that if the lifeforms under discussion were able to pick up the Terran internet on their communication frequencies they would find very little that amused them.

I really should read more of these articles.
I didn't know the idea had been around for that long.

cannibal star ate a planet

and this one which takes some comprehending

cannibal pulsar

Zygo