A.J

Wonderful pictures Kelly! truly breathtaking...

Interesting theory, I'm presuming that in 'repulsive gravity' you are referring to 'dark energy' the hypothetical 'all powerful' form of energy..A similar theory is that our universe is part of a 'multiverse' (an infinite number of universes) and that gravity being a weak form of energy compared with say magnetism, actually leaked from another universe having different laws of physics into our own, but having simply 'trickled' into our own 'space-time' is only a fraction of its true force....This is what worries me, as particle accelerators are designed to re-create the conditions immediatley after the big bang, what are we on the brink of unleashing?.....i read an interesting article on the bbc website that back in 2005, an experiment in the long island accelerator created a plasma ball which had all the physical characteristics of a black hole, it then evaporated in a fraction of a second!....All i can say is thank god it didnt become stable, otherwise we wouldnt be here debating extra-terrestrial life!!!

very true, but (and there's always a but...lol) another view (and a very compelling one) is that life itself came from outer space, in the form of amino acids & bacteria from comet /asteroid impacts in earth's early history....if thats the case, aren't we the very aliens that we're looking for??!!

Some interesting points from Magpie, the sheer size of the universe might suggest that advanced civilizations could be hundreds if not thousands of light years apart making contact impossible ever, however, the law of averages suggest that in taking the sheer age of the universe 13 billion years plus, verses the earth age 5 billion years, there might well have been countless civilizations flourishing at any given point in time, the famous 'Drakes equation' suggest this.....as to why contact has never been made?.....my two pennies are as follows....reason 1: as said earlier, the sheer distance involved makes contact improbable....reason 2: advanced intelligence on our planet capable of interpreting an alien contact has only been around for less than a billionth of the planet's history.....reason 3...to an alien civilization, our planet may be as unimportant to paraphrase Jodie Foster in the film 'contact' 'as a microbe on an ant hill in africa is to us'.....reason 4....once an alien civilization reaches certain advancements in technology, they self destruct, such as war, scientific experiement gone wrong etc.......personally reason 4 is the one that springs to mind for me, how close has the human race come, in its incredibly short time span, to destroy its self with war?......scary thinking!....and also the human race and indeed our planet could be on the brink of destruction with these so called particle accelerator scientific experiments as reports suggest that these scientists are playing with forces that should be left well alone!! (black holes & 'exotic particle' creation such as 'stranglets')

I know what you mean, its supposed to be a getting better sort of day in the midlands...erm, its getting worse! Its been raining steadily all day, and now its intensifying!

Wow! that latest met office radar slide looks positively evil in the south midlands.....it almost looks like a tropical storm radar movie!.....looks like its slowly sliding north westwards, which will probably put Brum in the firing line in the not too distant future..

Hi mate, just spoke with kelly, she's still up at Culver down

Great pics Phil, i'm about 20 miles to the NW of you in Penkridge...I think i'm gonna miss the main show here, but I have lightning about 2 flashes per minute to my South, weird orange colour

Ok, my 1st thread so bear with me....Whilst driving home tonight, a most unusual thought/scenario occured to me, namely, is there a possible link between areas of concentrated traffic and thunderstorm development given the right atmospheric conditions. My ideas are as follows: Numerous times when browsing the forum, I have seen posts of t-storm development along various 'motorway corridors' eg M4 & M6, my normal assumption being that naturally occurring areas of wind convergence due to the type of air mass/local geography aid localised 'lines' of enhanced convection giving rise to showers and thunderstorms, however is it possible that heat build up from shear number of traffic exhaust & engine fumes etc in a concentrated area could enhance local convection enough to give rise to thunderstorms developing?....In this scenario, any development would probably rely on a negligible amount of lower level wind.....As I said, an unusual thought, but is it plausible??...Any feedback would be much appreciated, even if to say its a dumb thought!

I guess its just down to personal taste....Personally I appreciate photo's of storms/weather as the real 'eye' would see , not jazzed up on super duper cameras or photo-editing software....in saying that, the photo's in question are some of the most spectacular I have ever seen...

nothing doing down here at the mo mate...there were a few distant flashes an hour or so ago, but the way things seem to be developing along the trough, I wouldnt quite count it out yet

Yes its quite interesting...this trough doesnt seem to be going anywhere in a hurry.....Its just building along its axis and backbuilding off the devon coast...It certainly looks like we're in for quite a deluge, the rain is certainly picking up again in Brixham

Looking at the latest met-office radar is suggesting that the trough is expanding along its axis into North devon, with a nasty looking cell developing over west dartmoor where as the Torbay storm shield holds firm, more individual cells brewing in the SW approaches so hope springs eternal for us south devonians!

Hmm.....a bit of a damp squib here in Brixham me thinks.......the heaviest of the rain and odd flash of lightning seem to be staying offshore to the east of me....looks like if the band intensifies, then the weymouth/dorset area could be in for an interesting time the next hour or two

Heavy rain at the mo.....Ashley, keep your eyes peeled to the SE.....just spotted distant lightning flashes, too far away to hear any thunder

Just started to rain...light at the mo