[Astronomy] T2: Lesson 2: Planets, Moons and Stars

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia had pined a notice on the Astronomy Tower door.

Astronomy Theory is in The Astronomy Classroom today on third floor landing. The lesson will begin at there o'clock sharp.

Prof D. Owen

The classroom door stood open, hooked to the wall. The desks had been arranged in a circle around the large wooden desk, which was obviously the Professors. But the professor was nowhere in sight.

It was now ten to three.

[Jac Shaw]

Jac read the notice on the door and sighed. "The third landing!" she grounded. She pulled her rucksack higher on her back and made her way to the classroom.

When she got there, the door was open and no one else was there, not even the professor. "Hmm," she commented and sat down in the second row, setting her rucksack next to her on the floor.

[Prof Grace Marks]

Grace walked into the classroom and looked around. She only saw Jac. "Good morning, Jac," Grace said cheerfully. She walked up to her and sat down in the desk in front of her. She took out her notebook and ink bottle and quill. She set the gently on her desk and turned to face Jac. "So Owen is a Ballycastle Bat's fan!" she chirped.

[Zachary Daniels]

Zachary walked into the classroom haughtily, annoyed at having to make the useless walk over to the Astronomy tower. His foul mood only grew darker when he saw his least favourite person in his Astronomy class sitting in the room with a Hufflepuff.

With a scowl, he sat himself a full row behind her and far to her left. Then, he sent a glare in her direction, before pulling out his materials. [/color]

[Prof Grace Marks]

Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw a slytherin sneak into the class. Grace remembered he and Jac had interrupted their previous lesson. Not wanting to let Jac know he was there she quickly lifted her hand in a mock wave at the slytherin, while Jac was not looking.

[Zachary Daniels]

Catching the small wave, Zacharay sneered in return, pulling out one of his quills. He then carefully ignored the girls, staring stubbornly in front of him and waiting for the Professor to enter.

"Blood Owen," he muttered under his breath, leaning on an arm. "Can't even make it to her own class before her students." [/color]

[Mozess Mirari]

Having finally looked at her timetable that morning Mozess realized she had Astronomy this year. What kind of a scam is this?, she'd thought, but not wanting to end up in detention for skipping a lesson she had gone to the classroom. Even more irksome was that it had relocated, Third floor landing?! Good grief...

She finally made it to the classroom and noticed a Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff, and a fellow Slytherin already seated, but not a professor in their midsts. 'How long do we have to wait before we can take a walk from this class?' she asked as she flung her bag over the back of a chair, sat down and set her feet up on the desk in front of her. Most classes she knew you had to wait at least ten minutes, then you could skip without much trouble, but new teachers meant new timelines, Such a pain in the- she cut her thoughts off as she looked between the three students awaiting an answer.

[Russell Parkhurst]

Russell walked into the Astronomy Classroom and looked at the other students. There were two slytherins looking very cheerful and a hufflepuff and a gryffindor were talking. Lively bunch, he thought. 'Miring all!' he said cheerfully and sat in a desk between the two groups. 'Having a good day so far?' he asked looking around at everyone.

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia Owen burst into the class in quite a huff. Her hair was messily tied on her sholder and her baby blue gown was billowing behind her. She looked around the classroom as she strod to her desk, and noticed the poor turn out. "Morning all!" she said and walked behind her desk.

She faffed with a large pile of paper and flicked her hair out of her face. "Um, yes," she said absently, and pulled out a single sheet of parchment. She turned her attention back to the class and smiled distractedly. "Welcome to Astronomy. Today we will be disscussing ... um," she checked her sheet, "Planets, Moons and Stars."

Dia pulled out her wand and waved it in the direction of the board. She set the sheet of paper down as the chalk lifted into the air and began to write on the board as she spoke. “We shall begin with Mercury,” she said and the chalk wrote Mercury on the board. Then she continued to speak, passing in front of her desk and the board as she did so.

“Mercury is the second smallest planet in our solar system, next to Pluto. It is named after The Roman god Mercury of trade, commerce and thievery, and as such had to be a very fast god, indeed. This reputation for speed may well have been the reason that ancient astronomers named the planet for this particular god. The tiny planet pops up on one horizon for a few days, only to disappear and then pop up on the other horizon a short time in the future.” The chalk was furiously making a summory of what the professor was say, they hung in the air at her pause.

She looked at the board and made sure that it had not gone on it’s own tangent. Pleased with it’s work she turned to the class and asked, “and questions or statements at this point?”

[James McFinnigan]

Fin raised his hand, eager to make himself known to the teacher. "I have something to say Professor. Technically, Pluto isn't a planet anymore. I think it's a...a sub-planet, if I'm not mistaken. So wouldn't that make Mercury the smallest planet? Oh and, to add on to your little speach there, I read somewhere that Mercury (or Hermes, which was his Greek name by the way," he said to a random class-mate in the seat next to him. He continued, "was also the god of science and business." He spoke with his usual arrogence, enphisizing the word 'Professor,' as he had always done. Fin sat down after his statement, and, giving a little drum-roll on his desk with his fingers, waited for the Professor's response.

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia watched the typical Ravenclaw, showing off his genious, with a bemused smile on her face. She gripped the wand with both hands and listened closely. As he finished Dia put her hands behind her back, holding the one in the other, and adjusted her stance. "Well, Mr ... McFinnigan you are well opinionated and informed."

She walked through the messily arranged desks and sat on the empty one in front of the boy. "You are correct in your statement about Pluto. Ten points to Ravenclaw. Pluto was discovered in 1930 as a result of an extensive search by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. Some astronomers have long argued that Pluto's small size, less than one-fifth the diameter of Earth, and a weird tilted orbit that takes it inside Neptune every couple hundred years make Pluto more like a Kuiper Belt body than a full-fledged planet. Researchers have now declared it a sub-planet. Well done."

She sifted in her sitting position. "However, by definition a planet is any large, spherical, natural object which directly orbits a star (being our sun in this particular case), and does not generate heat by nuclear fusion. This definition is simple, is based on a physical definition of how large an object must be to be considered a planet, and without modification it will give the same results when applied to any planetary system. This definition distinguishes planets from asteroids and comets, which directly orbit our star, but are generally not large enough to be pulled into a spherical shape by their own gravity, and it distinguishes planets from stars, which frequently are in direct orbit around other stars, but generate heat internally by nuclear fusion. And according to this definition, Pluto is in fact a planet."

Dia stood up and strolled back to the front of the class, "so it is up to you to make up your own minds about our, in my mind-" she smiled knowingly "-smallest planet. And so back to Mercury. That is another astute observation, McFinnigan, Mercury was the messenger of the Gods and was the God of business, science and thievery. However, Mercury was given it's name because he was the winged messenger who flew incredibly fast, etc, etc, etc. It was given two names by the Greeks: Apollo for its apparition as a morning star and Hermes as an evening star. Greek astronomers knew, however, that the two names referred to the same body. Heraclitus even believed that Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun, not the Earth. "

Dia had spoken enough, and the class was eerily quiet, so she sat on her desk and looked around the class. "Anything else?" she asked, smiling around at everyone.

[Henry Boggleworth]

Boggleworth strode into the classroom halfway through Owen's rather long speech. With a bemused look and a quizzical expression Boggleworth took a seat next to Grace he had a clear agenda for this lesson, unfortunately Owen wouldn't like it, he needed to talk to Grace as per usual. But before he began to chatter he had something to contribute to the lesson.
"Interesting stuff, so were all the planets firstly named by the Greeks then afterwards by the Romans, were there none before that whose names have survived to this day? Like I dunno Carthaginians, Egyptians or even earlier than them, or have they all been lost to the inexorable advnce of time itself?"

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia watched in amazement as a hufflepuff boy strode into her class and sat down. "Mr Boggleworth, is it?" she asked sarcastically, "welcome! Thank you for gracing us with your presence." She pondered Bog's question for a long moment then stood up and paced for a while. She was digging deep into her memory of Astronomy and finally found an answer.

She suddenly stopped walking and smiled at Boggleworth. "Well," she said, "it is important to remember that any dialect and writings of ancient civilizations are not understood by us. There were over six thousand different languages in the world in the previous century, and in this one three of those six are no longer being whispered into the ears of babies. So if earlier civilizations had named the planets, such as the Carthaginians or the Egyptians, we don't know it." She smiled at him, then nodded, "excellent question. Five ppints. Any others? Or shall we move on to Venus?"

[Mozess Mirari]

She raised her hand. She was not often one to participate willingly... or at least in a befitting manner, but having been taught much about Astronomy and other cultures at home this class did seem kind of interesting. At least comparitively to some of the other classes she was taking. She waited for a moment then said, 'There are, in fact, other names for the planets that have survived... other than the ones already mentioned. Asian cultures have called it the Water Star, Hebrews call it Kokhav Hamah which translates to...' it took her a moment to remember the dialect, 'Star... hot star... Star of the hot one. 'Hot one' obviously being the sun. In india Mercury was called Budha after the son of Chandra, the sun. The fact that Mercury is the planet with the closest orbit around the sun tends to make some people think of them as almost an entity of their own together.'

[Zachary Daniels]

Zachary turned to the Ravenclaw with a roll of his eyes. Leave it up to the birds to show off their knowledge whenever the opportunity passed them by. Leaning back in his seat, he grumbled and took out one of his quills absent-mindedly. Completely oblivious to the fact it was a quick quotes quill, he dipped it into striking, scarlet ink and began to sketch Thom Moen falling off his broom, and himself catching the snitch just a few feet away.

He smirked broadly at his page, subconsciously hearing Owen begin talking once more, about something or another that he didn't really care to note down. His quill had differen't ideas, however, and just as he finished drawing Thom an exaggerated, long nose, it began to move within his fingers, taking down perfected notes on what the professor was saying, almost copying them down word for word.

"Not again, you worthless piece of junk!" He cried loudly, cutting off the very last bit of Mozess' statement. The quill dropped to the page innocently, splattering scarlet ink all over the newly written notes. Satisfied, Zachary picked up the quill and shoved it back in his bag.[/color]