Sexual attraction

Often the result of a sexual attraction is sexual arousal. Their names were assigned by later astronomers.). The degree to which such fetishism exists or has existed in different cultures is controversial. (Uranus and Neptune were also Roman gods, but neither planet was known to the Romans as they are not visible with the naked eye from Earth. Many people exhibit high levels of sexual fetishism, and are sexually aroused by other stimuli not normally associated with sexual arousal. In Greco-Roman pantheism, some "stars", later identified as planets, represented various important deities, from which the names of the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were taken. The causal mechanism for this oscillation has not been established but differences in the simultaneous characterisation of body hair attractiveness within a culture between different social classes may indicate that the dynamic force driving the diffusion of differing male body hair social practices is in fact mate selection by females. They were thought to be the souls of the dead or gods and goddesses.

Cultural development seems to oscillate through multi-generational cycles from one pole to another: extreme hair growth, especially of facial hair accompanied by elaborate grooming rituals is often followed within a couple of generations by a widespread antipathy to body hair and the widespread adoption of depilatory practices. As well as certain constellations and the Sun itself, stars as a whole have their own mythology. At various times in history and throughout various cultures and sub-cultures the growth, maintenance and display of facial or body hair produced as a by-product of testosterone activity within male bodies has been considered a primary characteristic of sexual attractiveness, and of a display of masculinity in general. For an overall reaction of:. Males who make use of their hormone testosterone through exercise or bodybuilding techniques find themselves attractive as their muscles take shape. In stars with cores at 10⁸ K and masses between 0.5 and 10 solar masses, helium can be transformed into carbon in the triple-alpha process:. Those who believe that the muscular contour of a male is attractive, will choose other males with well-defined muscles. In more massive stars, helium is produced in a cycle of reactions catalyzed by carbon, the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle.

Among heterosexuals, the initial attraction usually begins with the physical features of the human form and attire. These reactions result in the overall reaction:. It would be preferable if the man is at least a little above the average in height in the given population of males. In the Sun, with a 10⁷ K core, hydrogen fuses to form helium in the proton-proton chain:. In European populations the average height of males is about 175 cm whereas the average height of females is about 165 cm - a 6% difference. Stars begin as a cloud of mostly hydrogen with about 23–28% helium and a few percent heavier elements. For the woman, the man should be at least a few percent taller than her in order to be perceived as handsome. A variety of different nuclear fusion reactions take place inside the cores of stars, depending upon their mass and composition (see Stellar nucleosynthesis).

It is thought that sexual attraction to a man by a woman, is somewhat determined by the height ^{[citation needed]} of the man. The apparent brightness of a star is measured by its apparent magnitude. It may also merely be that, as it is unhealthy to be too fat, this can be seen as unattractive. Besides the emitted visible light, the ultraviolet and infrared components are typically significant. Therefore weight is at least partially an indicator of social status, which is itself sexually desirable to many. The peak frequency of the light depends on the temperature of the outer layers of the star. Rather, weight is a visible indicator of social status and wealth; in some societies, only the rich can afford to be fat, while in others, only the rich can afford liposuction and personal trainers, or have meaningful employment that promotes healthy diet and exercise habits. The energy produced by stars radiates into space as electromagnetic radiation, as a stream of neutrinos from the star's core, and as a stream of particles from the star's outer layers (its stellar wind).

However, this cannot be solely because fat deposits provide the energy needed for developing a healthy fetus, as in other cultures, women so thin as to stand a high risk of miscarriage are considered attractive. For a list of traditional names, see the list of stars by constellation. In some cultures, both historically and in the present day, a female with greater than average weight has been seen as sexually attractive. See star designations for more information on how stars are named. Weight, whether tending toward thinner or heavier, has sometimes been considered a physical factor governing attractiveness of both genders (typically women), but there is some debate suggesting that this is actually a social factor indicating desirability. the "International Star Registry") purport to sell names to stars; however, these names are not recognized by the scientific community, nor used by them, and many in the astronomy community view these organizations as frauds preying on people ignorant of how stars are in fact named. Healthy-looking skin is also considered a beauty trait. A number of private companies (e.g.

Toenails also feature as a component of sexual attractiveness to some degree. The only body which has been recognized by the scientific community as having competence to name stars or other celestial bodies is the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The preference for this effect has resulted in the fact that artificial nails and manicures have grown extensively popular for women beginning in the 20^th century. The names are either traditional names (mostly from Arabic), Flamsteed designations, or Bayer designations. Another indication of health of an individual is the ability to grow long, strong, healthy-looking fingernails. Most stars are identified only by catalogue numbers; only a few have names as such. Often, women with long hair are thought to appear more beautiful, as the ability to grow long, healthy looking hair is an indication of continuous health of an individual. The Sun is taken as the prototypical star (not because it is special in any way, but because it is the closest and most studied star), and most characteristics of other stars are usually given in solar units.

The appearance of health also plays a part in physical attraction. Our Sun is a G2V (yellow dwarf), being of intermediate temperature and ordinary size. The realization to the contrary following the feminist movement and sexual revolution has brought about a new realm of plastic surgery and so-called designer vaginas. These fall along a narrow band when graphed according to their absolute magnitude and spectral type. Vulval aesthetics are relatively new in being observed, as previously the female genitalia was regarded as either repulsive, uninteresting, nonexistent, or taboo in Western culture. Most stars fall into the main sequence which consists of ordinary hydrogen-burning stars. In regard to the female genitalia, the aesthetic consensus stresses the roundness and largeness of the labia majora, and the symmetry of the labia minora. These range from 0 (hypergiants) through III (giants) to V (main sequence dwarfs) and VII (white dwarfs).

Conversely, the shape of the buttocks of an attractive person (male or female) tends to resemble the shape of a cardioid, which is the inverse transform of a parabola. In addition, stars may be classified by their "luminosity effects", which correspond to their spatial size. One idea of physical beauty regarding the breasts of women is that the best shape approaches the shape of a three dimensional parabola (which is called a Paraboloid of revolution) as opposed to a hyperbola, or a sphere. This system matches closely with temperature, but breaks down at the extreme hottest end; class O0 and O1 stars may not exist. It is typical for a plastic surgeon to correct a perceived error of proportion, such as making a nose that is too big smaller via rhinoplasty, or making breasts larger via breast implants. Each letter has 10 subclassifications numbered (hottest to coldest) from 0 to 9. A strong aspect to sexual attraction is proportion. The most common of these are types L and T, which classify the coldest low-mass stars and brown dwarfs.

These include depilatory practices (acomoclitism: intentional hair removal for visual and other effects) and a preference for light or blonde hair [1]. A variety of rare spectral types have special classifications. In Western societies, various cultural features may reflect the preference for neotenic female partners; many are dated to antiquity. There are many other mnemonics for star classification. A youthful, or neotenic, appearance is a notable factor governing the degree to which a female individual is regarded as sexually attractive. The main classifications can be easily remembered using the mnemonic "Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me" (variant: change "girl" to "guy"), invented by Annie Jump Cannon. There may sometimes be a focus on particular features of the body, such as breasts, legs, hair, or musculature. There are different classifications of stars according to their spectra ranging from type O, which are very hot, to M, which are so cool that molecules may form in their atmospheres.

However, these factors are complicated by many other factors. The minimum mass a star can have is estimated to be in the vicinity of 75 Jupiters. A sexually attractive visual appearance in humans generally involves:. Smaller bodies are brown dwarfs, which occupy a poorly-defined grey area between stars and gas giants. The importance of pheromones in human relationships is probably limited and widely disputed, although it appears to have some scientific basis. With a mass only 93 times that of Jupiter, AB Doradus C, a companion to AB Doradus A, is the smallest known star undergoing nuclear fusion in its core. Frequently a pleasant smelling perfume is used to encourage the member of the opposite sex to more deeply inhale the air surrounding its wearer, increasing the probability that the pheromones from the individual will also be inhaled. This generation of supermassive stars is long extinct, however, and currently only theoretical.

Theoretically, the "wrong" pheromone smell may cause someone to be disliked, even when they would otherwise appear attractive. The very first stars to form after the Big Bang may have been larger, up to 300 solar masses or more, due to the complete absence of elements heavier than lithium in their composition. As with other animals, pheromones may also enter into the picture, though less significantly than in the case of other animals. The reason for this limit is not precisely known, but the Eddington limit is part of the answer. (disputed — see talk page). He used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe about a thousand stars in the Arches cluster, a massive young star cluster near the core of the Milky Way, and found no stars over that limit despite a statistical expectation that there should be several. Some studies suggest that one source of physical attraction of a human male to a human female is dependent upon a proportion between the width of the hips and the width of the waist (aka waist-hip ratio) (see Golden ratio). Recent work by Donald Figer, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, suggests that 150 solar masses is the upper limit of stars in the current era of the universe.

This involves the senses, in the beginning especially:. One of the most massive stars known is Eta Carinae, with 100–150 times as much mass as the Sun. Much of human sexual attractiveness is governed by physical attractiveness. However, these have a much lower density than the Sun. Sexual attractiveness of a person to another person depends on both persons;. (See Big Bang theory and stellar evolution.) They range in size from the tiny neutron stars (which are actually dead stars) no bigger than a city, to supergiants like the North Star (Polaris) and Betelgeuse, in the Orion constellation, which have a diameter about 1,000 times larger than the Sun—about 1.6 billion kilometers. Certain aspects of what is sexually attractive is universally agreed upon across the human species, or nearly universal among particular cultures or regions, while other factors are determined more locally, among sub-cultures, or simply to the preferences of the individual, which may come about as a result of a variety of genetic and psychological factors. Some stars may even be close to 13.7 billion years old, which is the observed age of the universe.

Because human social behavior is often highly complex, a sexual relationship may entail one which, at its beginning, has little or no sexual behavior, and only after a period of time, which can be a courtship period, or a threshold such as marriage, does sexual activity enter the interaction patterns. Many stars are between 1 billion and 10 billion years old. The concrete meaning of a sexual relationship differs across cultures and history. Larger (giant) stars have much bigger, much more obvious starspots, and also exhibit strong stellar limb-darkening (the brightness decreases towards the edge of the stellar disk). Typically, sexual attraction refers to a person being drawn to another in order to have a sexual relationship. Small (dwarf) stars such as the Sun generally have essentially featureless disks with only small starspots. These signals, known as pheromones, can produce a profound effect upon an animal's behaviour even when present in very minute quantities. Stars can be much closer to each other in the centres of galaxies and globular clusters, or much further apart in galactic halos.

Frequently (especially in insects) chemical signals are used to generate sexual interest and to locate potential mates. Distances like this are typical inside galactic discs, where the Sun and Earth are located. It is possible that these features by the giving or the receiving ends cause major survival problems (see game theory), especially where, as in moose, a direct competitive element is involved. Travelling at the orbit speed of the Space Shuttle (5 miles per second -- almost 30,000 kilometers per hour), it would take about 150,000 years to get there. Conversely, the receiving sex may be predisposed to perceive these features as sexual attraction. The nearest star to the Earth, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, which is 39.9 trillion kilometers, or 4.2 light years away (light from Proxima Centauri takes 4.2 years to reach Earth). Some of these attributes seem to exist solely to demonstrate fitness and health, for example by demonstrating the ability to sustain an "expensive" feature with no other apparent survival function. That is 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000, or 230 billion times as many as the 300 billion in our own Milky Way.

In many species, there are behaviours which appear to be sexual display. Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion (7×10²²) stars in the known universe [1]. Often, there is some element of the animal's body which exists for sexual attraction, like the bright plumage and crests of some species of birds. Larger groups called star clusters also exist. Sexual attractiveness in non-human animals depends on a wide variety of factors. The majority of stars are gravitationally bound to other stars, forming binary stars. . A typical galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars.

This type of attraction is often important for the survival of sexually reproducing species, while in many species serves no immediate reproductive goal. Stars are not spread uniformly across the universe, but are typically grouped into galaxies. Sexual attraction, in species which reproduce sexually, is attraction to other members of the same species for sexual or erotic activity. The Sun is also a star, but it is close enough to Earth to appear as a disk instead, and to provide daylight. pleasing bodily posture. Interferometer telescopes are required in order to produce images of these objects. a high degree of mirror symmetry between the left and right sides of the body, particularly of the face. All stars except the Sun appear to the human eye as shining points in the nighttime sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth's atmosphere.

a lack of visible disease or deformity. The outflow from supernovae and the stellar wind of large stars play an important part in shaping the interstellar medium. a general body shape and appearance sanctioned by the local culture. These heavy elements allow the formation of rocky planets. olfaction (how the other smells, naturally or artificially; the wrong smell may be repulsive). The blown-off outer layers of dying stars include heavy elements which may be recycled during new star formation. audition (how the other sounds (in their voice and movements)). Eventually, most of the matter in a star is blown away by the explosion (forming nebulae such as the Crab Nebula) and what remains will be a neutron star (sometimes a pulsar or X-ray burster) or, in the case of the largest stars, a black hole.

visual perception (how the other looks). When they occur within the Milky Way, supernovae have historically been observed by naked-eye observers as "new stars" where none existed before. Supernovae are so bright that they may briefly outshine the star's entire home galaxy. The shockwave formed by this sudden collapse causes the rest of the star to explode in a supernova. This core will suddenly collapse as its electrons are driven into its protons, forming neutrons and neutrinos in a burst of inverse beta decay.

In larger stars, fusion continues until an iron core accumulates that is too large to be supported by electron degeneracy pressure. These too will fade into black dwarfs over very long stretches of time. The core that remains will be a tiny ball of degenerate matter not massive enough for further fusion to take place, supported only by degeneracy pressure, called a white dwarf. An average-size star will then shed its outer layers as a planetary nebula.

In old, very massive stars, a large core of inert iron will accumulate in the center of the star. Likewise, since they are more tightly bound than all lighter nuclei, energy cannot be released by fission. Since iron nuclei are more tightly bound than any heavier nuclei, they cannot be fused to release energy. Larger stars will also fuse heavier elements, all the way to iron, which is the end point of the process.

Eventually the core is compressed enough to start helium fusion, and the star heats up and contracts. In about 5 billion years, when the Sun is a red giant, it will be so large that it will consume both Mercury and Venus. As most stars exhaust their supply of hydrogen, their outer layers expand and cool to form a red giant. However, since the lifespan of such stars is greater than the current age of the universe (13.6 billion years), no black dwarfs exist yet.

At the end of their lives, they simply become dimmer and dimmer, fading into black dwarfs. Small stars (called red dwarfs) burn their fuel very slowly and last tens to hundreds of billions of years. Such stars are said to be on the main sequence. Stars spend about 90% of their lifetime fusing hydrogen to produce helium in high-temperature and high-pressure reactions near the core.

One example of such a nebula is the Orion Nebula. High mass stars powerfully illuminate the clouds from which they formed. Star formation begins with gravitational instability inside those clouds, often triggered by shockwaves from supernovae or collision of two galaxies (as in a starburst galaxy). Star formation occurs in molecular clouds, large regions of high density in the interstellar medium (though still less dense than the inside of an earthly vacuum chamber).

. Stellar astronomy is the study of stars. Scientifically, stars are defined as self-gravitating spheres of plasma in hydrostatic equilibrium, which generate their own energy through the process of nuclear fusion. Unlike a planet, from which most light is reflected, a star emits light because of its intense heat.

A star is a massive body of plasma in outer space that is currently producing or has produced energy through nuclear fusion. John Gribbin, Mary Gribbin (2001) "Stardust: Supernovae and Life — The Cosmic Connection", Yale University Press. Cliff Pickover (2001) "The Stars of Heaven", Oxford University Press.