Celestial Fertility Drugs?

Well, just when you thought you'd seen it all, news from the world of cosmology (via old-standard Yahoo! News) informs us that old stars are giving birth again.

I was particularly alarmed at the prospect of Joan Collins or Elizabeth Taylor unleashing their demented progeny into an already dangerously unstable entertainment world. Then I remembered that "cosmology" was about the study of the universe and not the same thing as the make-up bird on What Not to Wear* (as charming as she may be). However, this was only somewhat of a relief.

Ancient stars giving birth unexpectedly may seem like loads of fun to bored astronomers and physicists, but from where I'm standing, just about 93 million miles from one of those ancient stars, it's simply more weight on the troubling old existential boilerplate.

Think about it this way, one minute we're all not looking at the sun, just like they tell us not to do becuase we'll burn our corneas off. Then, without so much as a "Doctor Wilson to Obstetrics...stat!" over the celestial intercom, "Splat!" and in comes Earth Junior, knocking us out of our rightful place in the Solar System, much in the same way that Jay Leno beat David Letterman to The Tonight Show back in 1992. Only in this case, instead of hightailing it to CBS, we'd be smashed flat as a flapjack and sent careening in the general direction of Andromeda.

Why can't these ageing stars simply adopt, like Madonna and Brangelina? It's safer for all concerned and doesn't result in any disfunctional planets and the sudden demise of comedy-blog writers, their families and their small but deeply dedicated fan base. The paperwork can't be that intimidating, can it?

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*Don't blame me. Mrs. Fando enjoys the programme and it's seeped into my subconscious.