Astronomy Lesson four (First years)

Colin sighed as he leaned back into his seat. It was time for another lesson.

He fiddled with his wand as he waited for the first years to file in.

Alex didn't no if this was the Astronomy class or not so she walked in. "Hi I'm Alex Gilbert and I'm new here i wanted to no if this was the Astronomy class room" Alex asked being nice.

"You are most definitely in the correct room Alex Gilbert," Aquila smiled as he walked in and over heard the girl's question.

He slipped into a seat, threw his feet on the table and smiled at the girl, "Aquila Turrow by the way - Welcome to Hogwarts."

Damian made his way into the Astonomy classroom, star chart in hand. Despite the late hour, he was wide awake. "Professor," he greeted.

"Hey, Quil!" Damian grinned at the other boy, then glanced at the new girl. "Hi - I'm Damian."


(OOC: Afraid this is a busy week for me, folks, so I'll probably be slow in responding until this weekend...)

Alex smiled at Aquila and Damian. "Nice to meet you Damian, i'm Alex Gilbert by the way and thank you Aquila just making sure i had the right room" Alex flashed a quick smile.

Flora walked into the class noticed Aquila, Damian and a new girl apart from the professor.
"Good Evening Professor. Hey Aquila, Damian."
She turned to the new girl,"I don't think I've seen you before. I'm Flora Evans."

Jamie walked into class. "Hello Flora, Damian, Aquila, and Alex" Jamie said sitting next to Alex and getting out her stuff. "Alex i didn't no you were in this class to" said Jamie.

Alex looked at Flora "Hello i'm Alex Gilbert" Alex said. Alex turned to Jamie "Yeah i'm actually surprised you and i have a lot of classes together" Alex smiled at her new found friend.

"Okay," Colin clapped, "Let's get started, who wants to tell me what they know about planets - perferable the order of them, just to get the ball going so to speak."

Jamie raised her hand. "Aren't the planets an important part of our Earth's solar system" Jamie guessed this was right.

Flora rasied her hand and listed off, "Well from the nearest to the Sun, the order is Venus, Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupitar, Saturn, Urenus, Neptune and Pluto. But the Pluto is declared to not be a planet anymore." Flora shrugged, she didn't know why.

"Mercury's closest to the sun," Damian corrected, "and Pluto hasn't been considered a planet for about three decades." He knew because Theo had educated him on the very reasons that Pluto should still be considered a planet. The boy often wondered why his sister even cared when it had happened before she was even born.

"Earth is the only known habitable planet in our solar system, though, people used to think there was life on Mars," the boy said, then added thoughtfully, "some still think there's life on Mars."




*'About three decades' because we are in the future, of course

"Yes Ms. Malfoy - for all intensive purposes, the planet are earth's solar system. There are other objects too, the sun, the astroid belt - comets and such, but the majorty of what we think of as the solar system is the planets."

"Close Ms. Evans so very, very close - we'll give you five points for the effort though, " he nodded at the Hufflepuff boy who added the correction, "Right you are Mr. Grey, have five points for that, it is Mercury and then Venus but the rest of what you said Ms. Evans is the right order."

"We will come back to the belief of life on Mars later, just for fun - but I want to focus on Pluto for a moment.

"As has been meantioned Pluto was concidered a planet for a long time, but as Mr. Grey pointed out about three decade's ago it lost that title. Does anybody know why that decision was made?"

Jamie raised her hand. "Scientists decided to vote Pluto off. They didn't think Pluto was that important to be a planet anymore" Jamie wasn't sure so she guessed. Hopefully she was write.

Colin tilted his head to the side in a gesture that ended up being halfway between a 'yes' and 'no'.

"Not quite Ms. Malfoy; in a sense Pluto was deemed important, but it had more to do with findings of other objects the Pluto itself," Colin stated, "What they found outside of Pluto's orbit was a whole group of small space rocks lik Pluto orbiting the sun. There were way too many to make all of them a planet and still expect humans to remember them all, but too like Pluto to keep the one as a planet but not the others. So their solution was to demote Pluto and make them all a new class of space objects - Dwarf Planets."

"Now, as mentioned before, there was at a time a beleif that there could be life on Mars. Can any of you tell me what reasons - logical or ... less than - people at any point in history thought that to be so?"

Flora flushed when Damian corrected her. Damn, when'd I stop confusing Mercury and Venus? However, she decided to venture again as the Professor asked another question.
'There are these huge crater on the surface of Mars which is visible through telescopes. So people on earthe thought of them as some kind of canals. So they thought Mars must be inhabited by intelligent people.'

"Yes Ms. Evans - through there were some misinterpratation of past notes, and some telescopes that were making things appear as if there was 'canals' on mars; with that in mind the people of the time then did decide that life had to be there to create such things. Of course this line of reasoning was completely unfounded and has long since been removed from any sort of actual knowledge.

"The biggest pull for life on mars, that was being talked about so strongly as Mr. Grey mentioned - was water; Muggle space devises that had gotten on the other planet were giving back data that said there was frozen water on the planet. Since water was decided to be one of the key things needed to sustain life, there was a heated debate on whether there was a possibility that life could be found there. No evidence, however, has proved itself since that time, and that theory has more or less fallen out of favour. Of course there are a few who do still hold a flame for it."

"Now we are running out of time, so that is going to be it for the lecture part of this lesson. Now if you all would be so kind, I would like you to hand in your first Star Charts, and use the rest of your time to get started on another."

Damian handed in his star chart, then settled in to start on the next. He heaved a sigh. This was really more Theo's sort of thing - and his sister would certainly be willing to help him - but the only reason he'd originally signed up was because she'd be teaching it.

Taking a moment to decide where to start, Damian set to work.

Flora nodded and handed her star-chart. Classes will be ending soon, and with that the end of the session. What will she do after that? Should she go back to the orphanage to look for Lee? Or would that be too much of a risk?
She shook her head off the toughts and started on her new star-chart.

The room was quiet as the children began to work, and Colin threatened to nod off.

But the clock hands continued to move and before long they were out of time.

"That's all for tonight folks," he siad acompanying his announcment with a clap, "You are free too leave."