Definitions by Fearman
Midnight Express
1. Movie directed by Alan Parker in 1978, loosely speaking about the real-life experiences of young American hashish smuggler Billy Hayes in a Turkish prison. Starring Brad Davis and John Hurt. Script by Oliver Stone.
2. To escape from prison or some other aversive situation. Reference taken from Parker's movie.
2. To escape from prison or some other aversive situation. Reference taken from Parker's movie.
Midnight Express had six nominations for Academy Awards and won two of them.
I had to catch the midnight express out of boarding school.
I had to catch the midnight express out of boarding school.
Midnight Express by Fearman May 24, 2008
Xena
1. Drop-dead gorgeous babe who turned from the ways of evil to become a warrior princess in ancient Greece (televised version), and fought off various sneaky types and CG divinities. Played by Lucy Lawless, who is almost as gorgeous. Fought with a ring-shaped discus weapon and her own considerable wits. Had a girlfriend, Gabrielle, played by Renee O'Connor. You became Xena's lover with the skill of a champion and the luck of the gods, and if you messed her about she'd slice your head off and feed it to the Minotaur.
2. 1500-mile diameter dwarf planet orbiting the Sun at 38 to 98 times Earth's distance every 557 Earth years, accompanied by at least one moon called Gabrielle in honour of the undying couple of the TV series. So named unofficially on their discovery; these objects have since been renamed Eris and Dysnomia, after a Greek goddess and her daughter demon of lawlessness, indicating that the International Astronomical Union has at best a subtle sense of humour.
2. 1500-mile diameter dwarf planet orbiting the Sun at 38 to 98 times Earth's distance every 557 Earth years, accompanied by at least one moon called Gabrielle in honour of the undying couple of the TV series. So named unofficially on their discovery; these objects have since been renamed Eris and Dysnomia, after a Greek goddess and her daughter demon of lawlessness, indicating that the International Astronomical Union has at best a subtle sense of humour.
Pluto
1. Dwarf planet orbiting the sun once ever 250 Earth years on an eccentric orbit taking it from about 2,757 to 4,583 million miles out, or from nearly thirty to almost fifty times Earth's distance. For twenty of those years it is closer to the sun than Neptune; it was last at the closest point in 1989. Diameter, 1485 miles. Surface temperature by recent measurement 230 degrees Centigrade below freezing. Maximum air pressure is 700,000 times less than Earth's. Composition largely rock and various ices. Closely orbited by its comparatively large moon Charon (diameter 753 miles); the centre of mass of the system, around which both bodies orbit, is above Pluto's surface and both bodies are tidally locked on one another, always keeping the same faces inwards; there are at least two other moons, Nix and Hydra, discovered in 2005. Pluto rotates on its axis, and is orbited by Charon, roughly every six Earth days and nine hours. Pluto is at least five hundred times less massive than Earth (a body that many times more massive than Earth would outweigh Jupiter) and smaller than seven moons in the system, including our own Moon. Officially the ninth planet from its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, with the discovery of several similar-sized bodies in the outer system Pluto was demoted to the newly-created dwarf planet category in 2006. Gives its name to the highly toxic synthetic element plutonium, atomic number 94.
2. Roman god of the Underworld, connected by parallel with the Greek Hades. The Roman Pluto (or more accurately Plutus) was more a divinity of the riches found under the earth such as silver and gold and hence a god of wealth, as referenced in the latter-day term plutocracy (political rule by the wealthy). Because these substances were mined from a physical underworld, Pluto is often associated as well with a spiritual underworld, or the land of the dead, hence the latter-day link to Hades.
3. Also spelt Plouto, a nymph in Greek mythology, the mother of Tantalus by Zeus. The daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.
4. Mickey Mouse's pet dog. Introduced in Disney's cartoons in 1930, the year of the dwarf planet's discovery, hence the name. A relatively naturalistic character, as opposed to the anthropomorphic dog Goofy.
5. An inbred mutant from the film franchise The Hills Have Eyes.
2. Roman god of the Underworld, connected by parallel with the Greek Hades. The Roman Pluto (or more accurately Plutus) was more a divinity of the riches found under the earth such as silver and gold and hence a god of wealth, as referenced in the latter-day term plutocracy (political rule by the wealthy). Because these substances were mined from a physical underworld, Pluto is often associated as well with a spiritual underworld, or the land of the dead, hence the latter-day link to Hades.
3. Also spelt Plouto, a nymph in Greek mythology, the mother of Tantalus by Zeus. The daughter of Oceanus and Tethys.
4. Mickey Mouse's pet dog. Introduced in Disney's cartoons in 1930, the year of the dwarf planet's discovery, hence the name. A relatively naturalistic character, as opposed to the anthropomorphic dog Goofy.
5. An inbred mutant from the film franchise The Hills Have Eyes.
Pluto's next aphelion passage, or furthest swing from the sun, is in 2113.
By Pluto's grace, may Cornelius Arvensis grow filthy rich.
Pluto was flaunting herself in the River Lethe again.
Mickey could no longer control Pluto, and when Pluto smelled something interesting Mickey was pulled right up the creek on the lead.
If Mickey's a mouse and Goofy's a dog, what's Pluto?
Pluto watched intently from behind the red rock as the station wagon negotiated the rutted road.
By Pluto's grace, may Cornelius Arvensis grow filthy rich.
Pluto was flaunting herself in the River Lethe again.
Mickey could no longer control Pluto, and when Pluto smelled something interesting Mickey was pulled right up the creek on the lead.
If Mickey's a mouse and Goofy's a dog, what's Pluto?
Pluto watched intently from behind the red rock as the station wagon negotiated the rutted road.
Sun
1. The star at the centre of the Solar System, orbited by all the other bodies in the immediate neighbourhood. The thing that people go to the Canary Islands or Hawaii to enjoy a little better. A Type G2 yellow dwarf on the main sequence of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, approximately halfway through a lifetime of roughly ten billion years. The planet Earth orbits it at a distance of 93 million miles once a year. The Sun's mass is two times ten to the twenty-seventh tonnes, or a third of a million times the mass of Earth, diameter to the visible disc (photosphere) 853,000 miles. Contains 99.86 percent of the system's total mass. Shines by thermonuclear reactions at the core, where the proton-proton reaction fuses between 700 and 800 million tonnes of hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei every second, with four or five million tonnes of this mass released as light and other forms of radiation by Einstein's equation E equals mc squared; the photons take about a million years to blunder outwards before reaching the photosphere and flying out into space, where eight minutes later some of them power the weather systems of the Earth and photosynthetic reactions in plants that are directly or indirectly essential to most life on the planet; the ultra-violet radiation that comes with the package may give careless people sunburn. Energy output of the sun at this point in its evolution is 400 million exawatts. Interior structure consists of the core where nuclear fusion takes place, a radiative layer overlying this and a convective layer of progressively smaller convection cells towards the visible surface, physically a little like the patterns in a pot of water boiling on a stove. The sun's visible face is marked by comparatively bright faculae and dark sunspots, associated with localised magnetic fields; large prominences erupt from the disk that in themselves utterly dwarf the planet Earth. Ion storms coming from the sun interfere with Earth-based electronics and may pose a threat to manned space flight. Strengthening gusts in the solar wind interact with Earth's magnetosphere and generate aurorae around the magnetic poles. Solar core temperature is about fifteen million degrees Centigrade, temperature at the photosphere about 6,000 degrees, and temperatures of one to two million degrees are found in the wispy outermost layers of the atmosphere called the corona, from a Latin word meaning "crown". In absolute terms one of the brighter stars in the neighbourhood, although utterly outdone by the galaxy's relatively rare and short-lived supergiants. Orbits the centre of the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of roughly 140 miles per second at a distance of about 30,000 light years, carrying the planets with it, completing one circuit every 225 million years; one of our galactic years ago, the dinosaurs had yet to evolve.
2. A British tabloid paper noted for having a gorgeous babe on page 3.
3. Traditionally the nineteenth card in the Trumps Major of the Tarot deck. In the Rider-Waite version it shows a child riding a white horse with a red cape billowing behind them; further back a row of sunflowers peek over a wall and a rayed Sun-face looks down on everything ... but why are the sunflowers not facing the Sun?
2. A British tabloid paper noted for having a gorgeous babe on page 3.
3. Traditionally the nineteenth card in the Trumps Major of the Tarot deck. In the Rider-Waite version it shows a child riding a white horse with a red cape billowing behind them; further back a row of sunflowers peek over a wall and a rayed Sun-face looks down on everything ... but why are the sunflowers not facing the Sun?
Saturn
1. Sixth planet from the Sun and second largest in the system. The outermost planet known in classical times. 764 times Earth's volume, 94 times its mass. Orbits once in nearly 30 Earth years at a distance of roughly 925 million miles. Gravity at cloud decks averages about 1.16 times that on Earth. The least dense planet in the system, overall density roughly .687 times that of water. Diameter 74,898 miles through the equator, give or take five miles; 67,560 miles through the poles, give or take 13 miles. Average temperature at visible cloud decks is about 185 degrees Centigrade below zero. Atmosphere is mostly hydrogen with some helium and traces of other elements, similar but not identical to that of Jupiter. Cloud patterns appear more subdued than on Jupiter, due at least in part to an upper layer of haze. Best known for its bright and extensive ring system, consisting of countless trillions of blocks of (mainly) water ice. Most of the ring system is within a diameter of 225,000 miles or so, but is only a few hundred feet thick; scaled down to the size of a city, the rings would be as thick as a sheet of newsprint. Saturn has a retinue of major satellites comparable to those around Jupiter; only one of them, Titan, is particularly large. The latter is an intriguing body recently imaged by the Cassini Probe and visited by the Huygens Lander, and the only moon in the solar system with an appreciable atmosphere.
2. Roman god of time and farming, equivalent to the Greek Kronos. Best known for his feeling of unease at the possibility that his sons would outdo him, which he assuaged in the most efficient way possible; by eating them. One of them, however, escaped. His name was Jupiter, and the rest, as they say, is mythology.
3. The family of rockets used in the Apollo mission that (Uncle Sam, take a bow) landed humans on the Moon.
2. Roman god of time and farming, equivalent to the Greek Kronos. Best known for his feeling of unease at the possibility that his sons would outdo him, which he assuaged in the most efficient way possible; by eating them. One of them, however, escaped. His name was Jupiter, and the rest, as they say, is mythology.
3. The family of rockets used in the Apollo mission that (Uncle Sam, take a bow) landed humans on the Moon.
Uranus
1. Third largest planet in the solar system by diameter and least massive of the gas giants. Discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. A naked eye object in good conditions if you know where and what to look for. Higher proportions of water ice, methane and ammonia in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune have led astronomers to class these worlds in a separate category known as the ice giants. Knocked on its side by an early impact to its current 98-degree axial tilt, Uranus rolls almost like a ball along its orbit, with first one hemisphere and then the other experiencing daylight. Uranus is known for a system of dark rings of carbonaceous material. Orbits the sun at 1.787 billion miles mean distance, or approaching twenty times Earth's distance, from the Sun. Wins the booby prize for the least photogenic planet in the system, appearing a more or less featureless cyan globe, though this may change at the equinoxes every 42 Earth years. Visited by Voyager 2 in 1986. At last count, 27 moons.
2. Romanised form of the Greek god's name Ouranos, god of the heavens.
3. No scatological jokes, please.
2. Romanised form of the Greek god's name Ouranos, god of the heavens.
3. No scatological jokes, please.