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sweetpinkpixie · 07-01-2016, 01:10 PM

Airey gave the grounds a quick cursory look out a nearby window. Hopefully no nifflers would decide to start collecting things. This was a rare opportunity and it WOULD just be the man’s luck that some furry creature ruined it.

At least it wouldn’t be felines though?

SPOILER!!: Tenacius XD

That...was certainly not the sort of answer he was expecting right off the bat...but alright then.

Chuckling to himself, the Astronomy professor pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “While I am incredibly impressed that you know of that game, Mr. Salander, not exactly the answer I was looking for.”

SPOILER!!: quiet people <3

Quote:

Originally Posted by ginnilie

Constellations. That's what she was thinking of. But of course she had been wrong, and Professor Flamsteed had to even take a pause when answering her because she was so wrong. Arielle's face burned bright red and she slumped in her seat. Apparently she was only good at looking at stars, definitely not knowing anything about them. At this moment she really missed home. The hillside stargazing she got to do at home didn't require her to know the difference between a constellation and a shooting star. Not that she didn't know the difference, of course. Stars shouldn't have to have thought, just beauty. Not wanting to embarrass herself further, Arielle sat quietly in her seat and listened to the answers given for the terms Professor Flamsteed had written on the board. She wouldn't get the right answer anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

The more Daxton listened to the other students in the class, the clearer it became that - though most everyone seemed to understand that shooting stars were not real stars - the majority of people in this room apparently thought that actual stars had some kind bearing on making wishes come true. That revelation was not so surprising, he supposed. Really, he expected nothing less from these... classmates, who all seemed incredibly determined to deny logic and fact.

While he waited for class to move on, Daxton turned his attention to his hands. Or, more specifically, drawing on them. Taking his pen, he worked on adorning his knuckles, fingers, and hands with skulls and crowns and tiny little birds, as a means to pass the time while he listened to Airey Flamsteed assure everyone that he was not discouraging wishes or dreams. Really, none of that was of any consequence to Daxton.

The next time he looked up, there were words on the board, and at once Daxton flipped open his notebook. Abandoning the artwork on his own hands for the time being, he got to work instead writing down a definition for each of the terms from memory.

SPOILER!!: Notebook

Once he was done, Daxton stopped, leaned back from his notebook to look things over, before quickly leaning over it and resting his arms over his writing to prevent any other students from snooping.

Not surprised by Mr. Prince’s silence, and what was written on his paper receiving an approving nod as he passed, the silence of Miss Lestrange was a bit surprising. Mostly because of the expression she wore on her face and lack of response to his qualifying inquiry.

Oops? Encouraging smile?

……….er….side step to the next raised hand it was then.

SPOILER!!: comet people!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

So the dramatics in class were already getting underway, which was not only expected and typical, but it was just how Ariadne liked it! She literally never got bored in this class. EVER. She just listened to the first part of the discussion, because everything she could think of had already been said. She just nodded along to show understanding.

...and then there was a second question. She could probably answer this one.

STAR. She'd talked about a STAR.

No, no, no! A COMET! She was settling for comet, and to seal that deal, she raised her hand. "Hmm...a comet, professor! Let's see...picture a snowball. Only, picture it being all dirty and nasty and icky instead of pretty and white. This is basically what a comet is," she explained. "It's got ice in the center, which sounds kind of cool, but then it's also mixed with carbon dioxide and a few other things--like dust! The Sun ends up warming the ice, and it pretty much goes POOF! Then as the comet gets closer and closer to the Sun, the gas starts to get hotter and hotter and hotter until one day, it just separates and forms this tail! So what you end up with is a dirty snowball with vaporized ice and a tail of wandering gas. Pretty cool, huh?"

BREATHHEEEE. *GASP*

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

Fiyero smiled when Professor Flamsteed praise his last answer. He was glad, though somewhat surprised, he got it right; science had never been his strong suit! He watched as the professor wrote a series of words on the blackboard. So all they had to do was give the meaning of one of them... sounded simple enough.

He thought back to the chapter on stars in his astronomy book as he listened to some of his classmates' answers. Most of the good ones were taken now, but he had to say something or Professor Flamsteed might think he wasn't paying attention. He raised his hand. "A comet is basically a big ball of ice, dust, and rock that orbits around the sun," he said. "The long tail that we see here on Earth is made of jets of gas."

Quote:

Originally Posted by laurange

Nope.

Everyone was defining stuff and Brian was just a smidge bored and he'd just lay here on his desk for a little while until the lesson progressed to something he could actually answer. But then, there was a question he wanted to ask too. So he supposed that answering questions wouldn't be all that bad. Just this one.

Hand up. "A comet is a ball of dust and gas orbiting a point in the galaxy, which ignites as it comes close to the sun." Yeah. "How come they don't melt, professor? If it's a ball of dust and ice, and it's catching fire, why is it still around eighty years later to catch fire again?" Obviously, he was talking about Hayley's comet, but it was an easy example and illustrated his point.

Nodding his head in approval at both Miss Greingoth and Mr Jones’ responses and offering them both a thumbs up for basic premise, he really should have known that Mr. Woods would ask a pointed question eventually.

But first, just to reiterate definitions…

“Excellent,” he nodded. “A comet is essentially a ball of ice and rock made up from the beginning of the solar system. As a comet approaches the Sun, the heat and radiation produced by it produce a wind called the Solar Wind and when a comet gets close it begins to melt. Then then spews dust and gas that then ignites and this is what produces the tail that comets are famous for.”

He paused for a moment to allow for note taking and for his enchanted piece of chalk to finish writing down his definition verbatim on the board.

“To answer your question, Mr.Woods, to which I believe you are specifically thinking of Hayley’s Comet, each time a comet such as that one makes its orbit around the Sun, the ice that makes up the comet is cold enough that sunlight and solar wind particles cause it to sublimate - otherwise known as change from solid to gas directly without the transition through a liquid phase first - directly into the vacuum of space. Each time this happens, the overall size of the comet decreases and will eventually evaporate over many passes by the Sun. Someday, this will be the fate of Hayley’s Comet as well. Although it is more likely that the Sun will become a red giant before this occurs.”

SPOILER!!: you’re a star!

Quote:

Originally Posted by littledhampir

Olly was having an off day. It was pretty difficult for him to focus, even more so today than on any regular day. He was really trying because he liked Professor Flamsteed and Astronomy wasn't the worst subject and he wanted to be a good student but it was hard sometimes. His mind was wandering. He didn't even hear the first question asked but he tried to catch some of the responses. Shooting stars aren't actually shooting, they're falling. Interesting. Then they shouldn't be called shooting stars they should be called falling stars. Who had named them that anyway? Who had been the first person to see a shooting - er, falling -star? Had they made a wish? Why was that a thing? Who was the first one to do that? If it didn't even work then why did people start doing it in the first place?

Right, focus. He stared really hard at Flamsteed as he asked the next question. Oh, he just had to define one of those things. He could do that. Star. That was easy. Olly raised his hand. "A star is a ball of gas. When you draw one on a paper it has five sides but that's not what they really look like. You also usually color them yellow but their color depends on what stage of life they're in." That was all the information he knew about stars. He couldn't name any of the stages or anything like that. He just knew that at one point they were red giants. So obviously at that point they were red.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RachieRu

Ooh. They got to define things. She liked that! Harriet had done some reading on Astronomy. She really liked Astronomy. So she had done some background reading on it. She wanted to have a head start on things, and wanted to impress. So it might have been a bit of a nerdy thing, but she had done reading. It would help in the future, so she knew that it would be worth it.

Hattie smiled, listening to some of her classmates answers. She wasn't sure of some of the words, but she knew a few. Smiling, she raised her hand. "Sir. A star is a big ball of gas, and I believe it is held together by it's own form of gravity. There are lots in the sky, but the closest one to us is the sun, which I think is why it appears bigger than most of the stars we see at night"

Offering both Mr. Thomas-Borzekowski and Miss Paton thumbs of of approval, Airey was just about to go into a bit of a recap when he saw another raised hand. Once that hopefully had to do with stars since that was the topic on his mind.

SPOILER!!: Genny!

Sweet solstice would you look at that luck? Completely coincidential as well.

“Get your quill ready, Miss Tate,” he winked.

“To expand on what your classmates already said,” he then announced to the overall classroom. “A star is massive, bright, sphere of very hot gas called plasma which is held together by its own gravity and radiates energy that produces the light we see from earth by means of nuclear fusion. This process takes place in the core of a star and is hydrogen fusing, or burning, to make helium. And, as pointed out, they come in a variety of colors depending on the temperature of a star. Think of it like the coals in your fireplaces back in your common rooms. Just as a glowing red-hot coal is cooler than a white-hot coal, for example, so a red star is cooler than a white star, and a white star is cooler than a blue star. Our Sun is an average sized yellowish star. Stars which are smaller than our Sun are reddish and larger stars are blue.”

Get it? Got it? Good.

SPOILER!!: Simba

Oops. Had not seen this hand while star talk was going on….

………………...and maybe it would have been wise to...pretend he had not seen it?

Time to crush more dreams? Apparently so.

“Which would then mean some of those ancestors would cease to watch over you when a particular star were to vanish from the night sky once it ran out of fuel required for nuclear fusion.”

Deadpan.

Yeah...should have just ignored that raised hand. Nothing quite like ignoring the feeling of your skin wanting to crawl right off the bone like moving on to the next set of raised hands, right?

Right.

SPOILER!!: asteroids!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kimothy

Stars? Yeah, Vivian knew that they died too. But she was sure her mum knew that as well, or maybe she just wasn't paying that much attention during her mum's tutoring. Either way, she sort of got the answer right so she didn't mind. The blonde nodded as Professor Flamsteed filled up more of the gaps about her solar system knowledge. Now really, what WAS the topic for today?

However, now they were defining some celestial objects. Vivian tried to keep her pace and basically her handwriting while taking down notes didn't look that pleasing to the eye anymore. She made a mental note to rewrite them once she had the spare time to do so.

After scribbling the last bit about meteoriods, Vivian raised her hand for her turn. "I'll go with asteroids, Professor," she said. She didn't want to repeat one that was mentioned before. Oh yeah, she was competitive. Came from Edmund's Gryffindor nature, obviously. "They're composed of basically rocks and they orbit around the Sun too. They also... uh, gather together in some sort of belt. Asteroid belt, I guess. Name says it all. Oh, and they also tend to come SWOOSHING near the Earth! Like this..." The Slytherin raised her hand and made a downward movement with it, like an asteroid when it entered the Earth's sphere. "WHOOOOOOOSH! Like that!"

The girl bounced on her seat and nodded along and BEAMED. She was right, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goblinfrog

Kitty didn't mind Flamsteed not answering her thoughts on wishing upon a star, he nodded anyway and didn't seem to disagree. Now they were moving on to the next question. She raised her hand when it was her turn. "An asteroid," Kitty began, sitting up straight. "Is a giant rock floating through space. They are sort of classified as planets but often they are not shaped in the same way and are much smaller than average planets. Most asteroids in this solar system can be found in the Asteroid Belt, in between Mars and Jupiter. I think some of them might have small plants growing deep inside them but that's just my theory."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squishy

Really? Huh. You learn something new every day. Esme made a mental note of the fact that people thought that you could make wishes on shooting stars. Of course that didn't change the fact that it was better to go out there and make things happen. Annnnd she was getting TWO thumbs up. Go her.

A lot of people were choosing the same words and she wanted to go a little differently. She chose to talk about asteroids instead. Raising her hand, she said, "asteroids are rocks that revolve around the sun and are too small to be called planets. They can form belts where you have a bunch of them all together and they have hit earth and will continue to do so." Soooo yep. That was a little bit of information and there wasn't much else that she could say about them.

Well...that was...er...certainly a spirited little demonstration of an asteroid from Miss Fairfield now, wasn’t it. Despite it leaving the professor to simply...blink at the first year.

Er...right then.

Nods all around, however, to her along with Miss Darcy and Miss Valentine for their responses. Although plant theories would...politely be ignored for the time being.

“Excellent. Asteroids, as mentioned, are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets - meaning that the total mass of an asteroid is smaller than that of our Moon - and do not have enough gravity to pull themselves into the shape of a ball. The majority of asteroids in our Solar System lie in a vast ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.”

And that was really all they needed to know about asteroids for now. They were not the main focus of today’s discussion anyway...but what came neeeeeeeext...well...that truly got the astronomer’s blood pumping.

SPOILER!!: meteoriods!

Two thumbs up went to Mr. Song and Miss Darcy for their answers.

“Good good good,” he nodded approvingly. “In a nutshell, a meteoroid is a small rock or particle of debris in our solar system. They range in size from dust to approximately 10 metres in diameter. Larger objects that fall into this category are usually referred to as asteroids. Meteoroids orbit our Sun just like asteroids and planets.” He gave a little knowing tap to the tip of his nose. “Interesting to note is that a small percentage of meteoroids fly on a path that goes into the Earth’s atmosphere and then right back out again,” he explained, taking a small page from Miss Fairfield’s book and using his arm to demonstrate the “SWOOSH”. “And these are known as Earth grazing fireballs.”

SPOILER!!: meteors!

Quote:

Originally Posted by griffin

Penelope listened as Professor Flamsteed introduced the next topic, which included meteors. Looked like they would be discussing different celestial bodies and the differences between meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. Maybe this would lead in to a more in depth discussion or some sort of life threatening activity. After all of these years she had learned how to deal with activities in Professor Flamsteed's class, including when to wear protective safety gear, when to hide in the corner, and when to run from the room and hope that nobody would die. She had been through some seriously scary things in this class.

Define one of the terms? She could do that. This was really basic stuff. "A meteor is the light that we can see from a meteoroid that has entered Earth's atmosphere and is burning. Any pieces of the meteoroid that don't burn up and reach Earth's surface are meteorites." Was that more than one? All of the terms were connected, so it was necessary to explain all three to understand each of the terms. It was important to know the differences between meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. All three were distinctly different, but connected. Penelope wrote down definitions for each of the terms in her notes.

SPOILER!!: notes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daydreamer11

Was that a wink from Professor Flamsteed? Janelle guessed that her answer must have bee kinda right. Well okay then. Notes were taken, information was processed and then........it was time for the next question. Since Janelle had brought up meteors in her first answer, she decided that she would she would go with that for answer number two.

Janelle raised her hand and jumped into her answer, trying not to be too repetitive. "When a meteoroid or asteroid comes into the earth's atmosphere, it gets super hot. All of the little pieces that break off and leave a trail of light........those would be meteors. Yep, that was her answer and she was sticking to it.

Grinning at the two Ravenclaw ladies (although Miss Wright HAD gone and defined all three essentially), he gave a quick glance towards Mr. Song who had alluded to this term in his own answer. “Stellar. When a meteoroid, or a space rock if you will, enters a Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteor. The meteor heats up and makes the air around it glow and what we see from earth is a streak of light across the night sky. The majority of these burn up in the earth’s atmosphere. It is speculated that some 10,000 tons of meteors fall on the Earth each day, although the majority of those are no larger than a speck of dust.”

SPOILER!!: meteorites!

Aaaaaaaaand they had finally reached the end of the big three vocabulary words he wished to go over this lesson before jumping right into a bit of a scavengar hunt. Heh.

“Very good,” he nodded towards Miss Kennedy. Just needed to clarify a bit of language before moving on. “A meteorite is a meteor that makes it all the way to ground without burning up in the earth’s atmosphere and range in size from tiny pebbles to boulders. Meteorites that are observed as they fall through the Earth’s atmosphere and later recovered are called ‘falls’, all others are called ‘finds’. To this date there have been approximately 1500 collected ‘falls’ and 40700 ‘finds’*. Today, you will be given the opportunity to add to this grand total.”

* as of February 2016 these numbers are 1000 collected ‘falls’ and 40000 ‘finds’
but since our RP takes place in 2090 it is reasonable to assume MANY more have been observed and collected.
This is purely a SS canon number and should not be taken as RL fact <3

Grinning from ear to ear, the astronomer left the blackboard with all its filled in definitions and strolled triumphantly towards the center circle of desks. He did, however, give a little swish of his want to conjure up a little illustration beside the the M's of space rocks to help illustrate their differences to anyone who was confused.

source: wikipedia

“Unbeknownst to the majority of you, as you slept there was a meteor shower last night. While, as mentioned, the majority of these bits of space rock did burn up in the earth’s atmosphere, my sources have told me that a fair few were lucky enough to make their way down to earth and...become meteorites right here on Hogwarts soil.” They lived in a world where giant squid talked and magic was commonplace, was it really THAT hard to believe? “I will give you all about…” he paused to check his sundial watch. “...about half an hour to search the ground and find a meteorite. ONE each. These will be yours to keep and I will have an additional extra credit project involving them for those of you who are interested.” The man honestly could NOT stop grinning right now and was practically jumping in place - it was more like giddy bouncing, to be honest. “So, every up and out of your seats. You may leave your bags here as you will not need them while roaming the grounds. These space rocks ought not to be much larger than…” he glanced over his shoulder at Pebbles with a knowing grin. “...than Pebbles here. If you have any questions about this before you, please stay behind and ask them before heading out. Otherwise…YOU MAY BEGIN!”

CUE DRAMATIC ARM GESTURES TOWARDS THE DOOR TO THE CLASSROOM! GO GO GOOOOOOOOO!

And watching you, Mr. Prince. Don’t do it again.

OOC instructions:
There are approximately 40 meteorites that have fallen somewhere on the Hogwarts grounds. There meteorites are hidden in actual posts as is represented by this image:

You will find meteorites in the following threads:
The Courtyard
The Pathways
The Great Lake
The Playground
The Whomping Willow

Your task is to go looking through the threads on the Hogwarts grounds until you stumble upon a post containing this image. When you do, you are to quote the post () and post that quote (by copy pasting) along with the location and post number in THIS THREAD with your character finding it on the grounds and returning to the classroom with their meteorite in hand.

So, for example, this would look like:

Quote:

Airey walked along the pathways keeping a keen eye out for anything otherworldly...and then he saw IT!

Quote:

Originally Posted by post where meteorite image is found

BLAH BLAH BLAH RP POST FROM SOMEONE HERE BLAH BLAH BLAH

Nearly wetting himself with excitement, he picked up the space rock and sprinted back to the classroom, taking the steps on the moving staircases three and four at a time.

Pathways, post #1

You only need to find ONE such post. This is not a race. There is no special reward for being the first student to IC find and collect a meteorite and return to the classroom. I will be keeping track of posts to make sure that no two people claim the same meteorite. When this does happen, Airey will IC inform your student that they have brought back something else and you will need to go find another post, so do be sure to check back in this thread and try not to find a repeat! But if you do, it’s okay <3

I will give at least 48 hours for this activity so people in all timezones have a chance.

Please feel free to direct any questions to me via PM or VM.

Thank you all again for your patience and participation <333

07-01-2016, 01:10 PM	#56 (permalink)
sweetpinkpixie Wizarding World RPG Admin Minister for Magic Alley Proprietor Leprechaun Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: The Paths Posts: 40,054 Hogwarts RPG Name: Briallen Ashburry-Hawthorne Gryffindor First Year Hogwarts RPG Name: Nyle Harden Hufflepuff Second Year Hogwarts RPG Name: Iris Harden Ravenclaw Second Year Hogwarts RPG Name: Calliope Barrington Slytherin First Year Hogwarts RPG Name: Diamond Marchbanks Gryffindor Sixth Year Ministry Department Head: Charles Hollingberry Minister's Office Ministry Department Head: Airey Flamsteed Mysteries Diagon Alley Proprietor: Zachaël Lufkin Owl Post x12 x12	astronomizzle ♧ gryffinDORK \| & the rest is drag ♣ #badluckDerf Airey gave the grounds a quick cursory look out a nearby window. Hopefully no nifflers would decide to start collecting things. This was a rare opportunity and it WOULD just be the man’s luck that some furry creature ruined it. At least it wouldn’t be felines though? SPOILER!!: Tenacius XD Quote: Originally Posted by Steelsheen See? Professor FlameOn can follow his train of thought! Therefore his answer was so right. Crickets, donkeys and all! But oh next discussion got the Curly Top even more eager, seeing the first word on that list "METROID!!" he exclaimed as he raised-pointed his hand at the board "That is such a COOL video game. Totally retro, but fuuuuuun! You get to wear this battle suit that looks like a cross between a football uniform and an astronaut suit. But orange! And then you have a hand cannon on your arm! You get to shoot things up like that floating jellyfish with fangs and they suck out the life outta yah! sllluuurrrrrpppppp" Clearly, this is a boy that needs to read things twice. That...was certainly not the sort of answer he was expecting right off the bat...but alright then. Chuckling to himself, the Astronomy professor pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “While I am incredibly impressed that you know of that game, Mr. Salander, not exactly the answer I was looking for.” SPOILER!!: quiet people <3 Quote: Originally Posted by ginnilie Constellations. That's what she was thinking of. But of course she had been wrong, and Professor Flamsteed had to even take a pause when answering her because she was so wrong. Arielle's face burned bright red and she slumped in her seat. Apparently she was only good at looking at stars, definitely not knowing anything about them. At this moment she really missed home. The hillside stargazing she got to do at home didn't require her to know the difference between a constellation and a shooting star. Not that she didn't know the difference, of course. Stars shouldn't have to have thought, just beauty. Not wanting to embarrass herself further, Arielle sat quietly in her seat and listened to the answers given for the terms Professor Flamsteed had written on the board. She wouldn't get the right answer anyway. Quote: Originally Posted by Felixir The more Daxton listened to the other students in the class, the clearer it became that - though most everyone seemed to understand that shooting stars were not real stars - the majority of people in this room apparently thought that actual stars had some kind bearing on making wishes come true. That revelation was not so surprising, he supposed. Really, he expected nothing less from these... classmates, who all seemed incredibly determined to deny logic and fact. While he waited for class to move on, Daxton turned his attention to his hands. Or, more specifically, drawing on them. Taking his pen, he worked on adorning his knuckles, fingers, and hands with skulls and crowns and tiny little birds, as a means to pass the time while he listened to Airey Flamsteed assure everyone that he was not discouraging wishes or dreams. Really, none of that was of any consequence to Daxton. The next time he looked up, there were words on the board, and at once Daxton flipped open his notebook. Abandoning the artwork on his own hands for the time being, he got to work instead writing down a definition for each of the terms from memory. SPOILER!!: Notebook Astronomy Meteoroid A body of rock or raw metal that travels through outer space. If a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere and begins the process of burning up, it ceases to be a meteoroid and becomes a meteor. Meteor The name of the phenomenon wherein a fragment of matter (usually a meteoroid or asteroid) from outer space enters the Earth's atmosphere and, at the high speeds it travels, begins to burn up and disintegrate, leaving what appears to be a trail of light in its wake. Meteorite A fragment of matter from outer space (usually a meteoroid or asteroid) that has entered the Earth's gravitational field, travelled through its atmosphere and survived the process or burning up, making it to the surface of the planet. Comet A celestial body made up of ice and dust that traverses outer space. Can be observed with a 'light tail' when it passes near the sun. Asteroid A rocky body orbiting the sun, technically classed as minor planets. Many reside in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and have a regular orbit. It is possible for asteroids to hit Earth, as their orbits bring them close enough for a collision. Star Essentially a ball of burning gas, formed when a gaseous nebula collapses in on itself. Main 'ingredients' are hydrogen and helium. A star burns using nuclear fusion, and new elements are formed from stars, also during the process of nuclear fusion, when the existing elements are fused together; every existing element is or has been formed from the nuclear fusion in a star. Though stars appear from Earth to be at a fixed point in the sky, they too are moving (though not in the manner of a 'shooting star' (meteor)) as they orbit around the central point in their galaxy. Stars are also immense in size, though their size varies throughout their life cycle. Once he was done, Daxton stopped, leaned back from his notebook to look things over, before quickly leaning over it and resting his arms over his writing to prevent any other students from snooping. Not surprised by Mr. Prince’s silence, and what was written on his paper receiving an approving nod as he passed, the silence of Miss Lestrange was a bit surprising. Mostly because of the expression she wore on her face and lack of response to his qualifying inquiry. Oops? Encouraging smile? ……….er….side step to the next raised hand it was then. SPOILER!!: comet people! Quote: Originally Posted by Anna Banana So the dramatics in class were already getting underway, which was not only expected and typical, but it was just how Ariadne liked it! She literally never got bored in this class. EVER. She just listened to the first part of the discussion, because everything she could think of had already been said. She just nodded along to show understanding. ...and then there was a second question. She could probably answer this one. STAR. She'd talked about a STAR. No, no, no! A COMET! She was settling for comet, and to seal that deal, she raised her hand. "Hmm...a comet, professor! Let's see...picture a snowball. Only, picture it being all dirty and nasty and icky instead of pretty and white. This is basically what a comet is," she explained. "It's got ice in the center, which sounds kind of cool, but then it's also mixed with carbon dioxide and a few other things--like dust! The Sun ends up warming the ice, and it pretty much goes POOF! Then as the comet gets closer and closer to the Sun, the gas starts to get hotter and hotter and hotter until one day, it just separates and forms this tail! So what you end up with is a dirty snowball with vaporized ice and a tail of wandering gas. Pretty cool, huh?" BREATHHEEEE. GASP Quote: Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy Fiyero smiled when Professor Flamsteed praise his last answer. He was glad, though somewhat surprised, he got it right; science had never been his strong suit! He watched as the professor wrote a series of words on the blackboard. So all they had to do was give the meaning of one of them... sounded simple enough. He thought back to the chapter on stars in his astronomy book as he listened to some of his classmates' answers. Most of the good ones were taken now, but he had to say something or Professor Flamsteed might think he wasn't paying attention. He raised his hand. "A comet is basically a big ball of ice, dust, and rock that orbits around the sun," he said. "The long tail that we see here on Earth is made of jets of gas." Quote: Originally Posted by laurange Nope. Everyone was defining stuff and Brian was just a smidge bored and he'd just lay here on his desk for a little while until the lesson progressed to something he could actually answer. But then, there was a question he wanted to ask too. So he supposed that answering questions wouldn't be all that bad. Just this one. Hand up. "A comet is a ball of dust and gas orbiting a point in the galaxy, which ignites as it comes close to the sun." Yeah. "How come they don't melt, professor? If it's a ball of dust and ice, and it's catching fire, why is it still around eighty years later to catch fire again?" Obviously, he was talking about Hayley's comet, but it was an easy example and illustrated his point. Nodding his head in approval at both Miss Greingoth and Mr Jones’ responses and offering them both a thumbs up for basic premise, he really should have known that Mr. Woods would ask a pointed question eventually. But first, just to reiterate definitions… “Excellent,” he nodded. “A comet is essentially a ball of ice and rock made up from the beginning of the solar system. As a comet approaches the Sun, the heat and radiation produced by it produce a wind called the Solar Wind and when a comet gets close it begins to melt. Then then spews dust and gas that then ignites and this is what produces the tail that comets are famous for.” He paused for a moment to allow for note taking and for his enchanted piece of chalk to finish writing down his definition verbatim on the board. “To answer your question, Mr.Woods, to which I believe you are specifically thinking of Hayley’s Comet, each time a comet such as that one makes its orbit around the Sun, the ice that makes up the comet is cold enough that sunlight and solar wind particles cause it to sublimate - otherwise known as change from solid to gas directly without the transition through a liquid phase first - directly into the vacuum of space. Each time this happens, the overall size of the comet decreases and will eventually evaporate over many passes by the Sun. Someday, this will be the fate of Hayley’s Comet as well. Although it is more likely that the Sun will become a red giant before this occurs.” SPOILER!!: you’re a star! Quote: Originally Posted by littledhampir Olly was having an off day. It was pretty difficult for him to focus, even more so today than on any regular day. He was really trying because he liked Professor Flamsteed and Astronomy wasn't the worst subject and he wanted to be a good student but it was hard sometimes. His mind was wandering. He didn't even hear the first question asked but he tried to catch some of the responses. Shooting stars aren't actually shooting, they're falling. Interesting. Then they shouldn't be called shooting stars they should be called falling stars. Who had named them that anyway? Who had been the first person to see a shooting - er, falling -star? Had they made a wish? Why was that a thing? Who was the first one to do that? If it didn't even work then why did people start doing it in the first place? Right, focus. He stared really hard at Flamsteed as he asked the next question. Oh, he just had to define one of those things. He could do that. Star. That was easy. Olly raised his hand. "A star is a ball of gas. When you draw one on a paper it has five sides but that's not what they really look like. You also usually color them yellow but their color depends on what stage of life they're in." That was all the information he knew about stars. He couldn't name any of the stages or anything like that. He just knew that at one point they were red giants. So obviously at that point they were red. Quote: Originally Posted by RachieRu Ooh. They got to define things. She liked that! Harriet had done some reading on Astronomy. She really liked Astronomy. So she had done some background reading on it. She wanted to have a head start on things, and wanted to impress. So it might have been a bit of a nerdy thing, but she had done reading. It would help in the future, so she knew that it would be worth it. Hattie smiled, listening to some of her classmates answers. She wasn't sure of some of the words, but she knew a few. Smiling, she raised her hand. "Sir. A star is a big ball of gas, and I believe it is held together by it's own form of gravity. There are lots in the sky, but the closest one to us is the sun, which I think is why it appears bigger than most of the stars we see at night" Offering both Mr. Thomas-Borzekowski and Miss Paton thumbs of of approval, Airey was just about to go into a bit of a recap when he saw another raised hand. Once that hopefully had to do with stars since that was the topic on his mind. SPOILER!!: Genny! Quote: Originally Posted by Magical Soul Woooow. Genny was leaning on her desk, hand serving as a head holder as her mouth stretched wide open from the weight of her ~~big~~ head. She was learning a lot today, so a falling star is not a star but a burning rock? What a harsh truth about something who looked so beautiful and hopeful. Her eyes went from student to student as they gave their knowledge of those terms that she HEARD of but couldn't, for the life of her, define any of them. "I'm very interested in knowing what a star is!" She raised her hand, quite excited for someone whose knowledge in Astronomy was that of a fish in flying. Also being quiet ALL lesson was not something she could manage without at least two bags of candy in her bag. Sweet solstice would you look at that luck? Completely coincidential as well. “Get your quill ready, Miss Tate,” he winked. “To expand on what your classmates already said,” he then announced to the overall classroom. “A star is massive, bright, sphere of very hot gas called plasma which is held together by its own gravity and radiates energy that produces the light we see from earth by means of nuclear fusion. This process takes place in the core of a star and is hydrogen fusing, or burning, to make helium. And, as pointed out, they come in a variety of colors depending on the temperature of a star. Think of it like the coals in your fireplaces back in your common rooms. Just as a glowing red-hot coal is cooler than a white-hot coal, for example, so a red star is cooler than a white star, and a white star is cooler than a blue star. Our Sun is an average sized yellowish star. Stars which are smaller than our Sun are reddish and larger stars are blue.” Get it? Got it? Good. SPOILER!!: Simba Quote: Originally Posted by PhoenixRising Skylar sat listening dutifully to the lesson began, which seemed to start with a bit of a review as to some basic definitions. Most of the terms - no all of the terms had already been defined by the time the first year had figured out one to define, which meant she could just continue to sit there or she could elaborate on one of the terms, adding to it. Recalling a classic muggle movie she'd seen ages ago, Sky opted for the latter. "I thought the stars represented our great ancestors of the past, watching over us...." Sky mumbled upon raising her hand. Okay, that sounded really lame, even if it was kind of nice to believe that there were people watching over them like guardian angels... Oops. Had not seen this hand while star talk was going on…. ………………...and maybe it would have been wise to...pretend he had not seen it? Time to crush more dreams? Apparently so. “Which would then mean some of those ancestors would cease to watch over you when a particular star were to vanish from the night sky once it ran out of fuel required for nuclear fusion.” Deadpan. Yeah...should have just ignored that raised hand. Nothing quite like ignoring the feeling of your skin wanting to crawl right off the bone like moving on to the next set of raised hands, right? Right. SPOILER!!: asteroids! Quote: Originally Posted by Kimothy Stars? Yeah, Vivian knew that they died too. But she was sure her mum knew that as well, or maybe she just wasn't paying that much attention during her mum's tutoring. Either way, she sort of got the answer right so she didn't mind. The blonde nodded as Professor Flamsteed filled up more of the gaps about her solar system knowledge. Now really, what WAS the topic for today? However, now they were defining some celestial objects. Vivian tried to keep her pace and basically her handwriting while taking down notes didn't look that pleasing to the eye anymore. She made a mental note to rewrite them once she had the spare time to do so. After scribbling the last bit about meteoriods, Vivian raised her hand for her turn. "I'll go with asteroids, Professor," she said. She didn't want to repeat one that was mentioned before. Oh yeah, she was competitive. Came from Edmund's Gryffindor nature, obviously. "They're composed of basically rocks and they orbit around the Sun too. They also... uh, gather together in some sort of belt. Asteroid belt, I guess. Name says it all. Oh, and they also tend to come SWOOSHING near the Earth! Like this..." The Slytherin raised her hand and made a downward movement with it, like an asteroid when it entered the Earth's sphere. "WHOOOOOOOSH! Like that!" The girl bounced on her seat and nodded along and BEAMED. She was right, right? Quote: Originally Posted by Goblinfrog Kitty didn't mind Flamsteed not answering her thoughts on wishing upon a star, he nodded anyway and didn't seem to disagree. Now they were moving on to the next question. She raised her hand when it was her turn. "An asteroid," Kitty began, sitting up straight. "Is a giant rock floating through space. They are sort of classified as planets but often they are not shaped in the same way and are much smaller than average planets. Most asteroids in this solar system can be found in the Asteroid Belt, in between Mars and Jupiter. I think some of them might have small plants growing deep inside them but that's just my theory." Quote: Originally Posted by Squishy Really? Huh. You learn something new every day. Esme made a mental note of the fact that people thought that you could make wishes on shooting stars. Of course that didn't change the fact that it was better to go out there and make things happen. Annnnd she was getting TWO thumbs up. Go her. A lot of people were choosing the same words and she wanted to go a little differently. She chose to talk about asteroids instead. Raising her hand, she said, "asteroids are rocks that revolve around the sun and are too small to be called planets. They can form belts where you have a bunch of them all together and they have hit earth and will continue to do so." Soooo yep. That was a little bit of information and there wasn't much else that she could say about them. Well...that was...er...certainly a spirited little demonstration of an asteroid from Miss Fairfield now, wasn’t it. Despite it leaving the professor to simply...blink at the first year. Er...right then. Nods all around, however, to her along with Miss Darcy and Miss Valentine for their responses. Although plant theories would...politely be ignored for the time being. “Excellent. Asteroids, as mentioned, are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets - meaning that the total mass of an asteroid is smaller than that of our Moon - and do not have enough gravity to pull themselves into the shape of a ball. The majority of asteroids in our Solar System lie in a vast ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.” And that was really all they needed to know about asteroids for now. They were not the main focus of today’s discussion anyway...but what came neeeeeeeext...well...that truly got the astronomer’s blood pumping. SPOILER!!: meteoriods! Quote: Originally Posted by Ameh He liked getting a 'Stellar'. It meant he'd said the right thing, and he oh so enjoyed being right. Jaemin gave a slight nod as the other students finished answering that question, then raised his hand again for the next. He'd take his own suggested term, please. "Meteoroids are small bits of rock that fly about in space... like, mostly pebble-sized bits-" He held up his hand, fingers indicating their smallness. "-but sometimes they can get pretty big. Like 'as long as your arm is' big. But not as big as asteroids are. And they stop being meteoroids when they get into the atmosphere, I think." Then they turned into both shooting stars and something else. SPACE DUST. Bits of rock in the sky weren't constellations, but they were equally as interesting. Quote: Originally Posted by Suziella Juno raised her hand and waited to be called on. There were a lot of good answers so far but she was pretty sure no one had answered what she was going to. When she was finally called on she replied, "Meteoroids are rocky or metallic spheres that travel through space. They are much smaller than Asteroids...they would basically be a Meteor if they fell through our atmosphere before becoming a Meteorite if it falls to the ground." Yep. That was right....wasn't it? Two thumbs up went to Mr. Song and Miss Darcy for their answers. “Good good good,” he nodded approvingly. “In a nutshell, a meteoroid is a small rock or particle of debris in our solar system. They range in size from dust to approximately 10 metres in diameter. Larger objects that fall into this category are usually referred to as asteroids. Meteoroids orbit our Sun just like asteroids and planets.” He gave a little knowing tap to the tip of his nose. “Interesting to note is that a small percentage of meteoroids fly on a path that goes into the Earth’s atmosphere and then right back out again,” he explained, taking a small page from Miss Fairfield’s book and using his arm to demonstrate the “SWOOSH”. “And these are known as Earth grazing fireballs.” SPOILER!!: meteors! Quote: Originally Posted by griffin Penelope listened as Professor Flamsteed introduced the next topic, which included meteors. Looked like they would be discussing different celestial bodies and the differences between meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. Maybe this would lead in to a more in depth discussion or some sort of life threatening activity. After all of these years she had learned how to deal with activities in Professor Flamsteed's class, including when to wear protective safety gear, when to hide in the corner, and when to run from the room and hope that nobody would die. She had been through some seriously scary things in this class. Define one of the terms? She could do that. This was really basic stuff. "A meteor is the light that we can see from a meteoroid that has entered Earth's atmosphere and is burning. Any pieces of the meteoroid that don't burn up and reach Earth's surface are meteorites." Was that more than one? All of the terms were connected, so it was necessary to explain all three to understand each of the terms. It was important to know the differences between meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. All three were distinctly different, but connected. Penelope wrote down definitions for each of the terms in her notes. SPOILER!!: notes Penelope Wright 28 February 2090 Astronomy Why is it naive and illogical to wish on shooting stars? -Shooting stars are meteors -In Greek myths shooting stars are seen as the gods looking down upon the Earth -Meteors are burning meteoroids and have no power to grant wishes -There is no scientific evidence to support wishing on shooting stars METEOROID - Small rocky body in space orbiting the sun. Smaller than an asteroid. METEOR - A meteoroid burning in Earth's atmosphere METEORITE - A meteoroid that did not completely burn up in Earth's atmosphere and has reached Earth's surface. Comet - Frozen gases and rock orbiting the sun. Has a visible dust tail. Asteroid - A large rocky body in space in orbit around the sun. Larger than a meteoroid. Smaller than a planet. Star - Really large ball of burning gas. Produces light. Mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. Nuclear fusion occurs in the core. Quote: Originally Posted by Daydreamer11 Was that a wink from Professor Flamsteed? Janelle guessed that her answer must have bee kinda right. Well okay then. Notes were taken, information was processed and then........it was time for the next question. Since Janelle had brought up meteors in her first answer, she decided that she would she would go with that for answer number two. Janelle raised her hand and jumped into her answer, trying not to be too repetitive. "When a meteoroid or asteroid comes into the earth's atmosphere, it gets super hot. All of the little pieces that break off and leave a trail of light........those would be meteors. Yep, that was her answer and she was sticking to it. Grinning at the two Ravenclaw ladies (although Miss Wright HAD gone and defined all three essentially), he gave a quick glance towards Mr. Song who had alluded to this term in his own answer. “Stellar. When a meteoroid, or a space rock if you will, enters a Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteor. The meteor heats up and makes the air around it glow and what we see from earth is a streak of light across the night sky. The majority of these burn up in the earth’s atmosphere. It is speculated that some 10,000 tons of meteors fall on the Earth each day, although the majority of those are no larger than a speck of dust.” SPOILER!!: meteorites! Quote: Originally Posted by FwooperOnYourLeft Azura was all ready to go with her answer for Star.. but someone got to it first.. and then comet.. and finally she was left with meteorite.. Azura raised her hand as she gave her answer. "A Meteorite Professor, is a a piece of rock from an asteroid that manages to survive it's trip through the atmosphere and hits the earth surface.. So it doesn't get burned up, but actually manages to get through and hit the ground." She said with a nod as she looked down at her notes again and started to write down the other answers that she heard. Aaaaaaaaand they had finally reached the end of the big three vocabulary words he wished to go over this lesson before jumping right into a bit of a scavengar hunt. Heh. “Very good,” he nodded towards Miss Kennedy. Just needed to clarify a bit of language before moving on. “A meteorite is a meteor that makes it all the way to ground without burning up in the earth’s atmosphere and range in size from tiny pebbles to boulders. Meteorites that are observed as they fall through the Earth’s atmosphere and later recovered are called ‘falls’, all others are called ‘finds’. To this date there have been approximately 1500 collected ‘falls’ and 40700 ‘finds’. Today, you will be given the opportunity to add to this grand total.” as of February 2016 these numbers are 1000 collected ‘falls’ and 40000 ‘finds’ but since our RP takes place in 2090 it is reasonable to assume MANY more have been observed and collected. This is purely a SS canon number and should not be taken as RL fact <3 Grinning from ear to ear, the astronomer left the blackboard with all its filled in definitions and strolled triumphantly towards the center circle of desks. He did, however, give a little swish of his want to conjure up a little illustration beside the the M's of space rocks to help illustrate their differences to anyone who was confused. source: wikipedia “Unbeknownst to the majority of you, as you slept there was a meteor shower last night. While, as mentioned, the majority of these bits of space rock did burn up in the earth’s atmosphere, my sources have told me that a fair few were lucky enough to make their way down to earth and...become meteorites right here on Hogwarts soil.” They lived in a world where giant squid talked and magic was commonplace, was it really THAT hard to believe? “I will give you all about…” he paused to check his sundial watch. “...about half an hour to search the ground and find a meteorite. ONE each. These will be yours to keep and I will have an additional extra credit project involving them for those of you who are interested.” The man honestly could NOT stop grinning right now and was practically jumping in place - it was more like giddy bouncing, to be honest. “So, every up and out of your seats. You may leave your bags here as you will not need them while roaming the grounds. These space rocks ought not to be much larger than…” he glanced over his shoulder at Pebbles with a knowing grin. “...than Pebbles here. If you have any questions about this before you, please stay behind and ask them before heading out. Otherwise…YOU MAY BEGIN!” CUE DRAMATIC ARM GESTURES TOWARDS THE DOOR TO THE CLASSROOM! GO GO GOOOOOOOOO! And watching you, Mr. Prince. Don’t do it again. OOC instructions: There are approximately 40 meteorites that have fallen somewhere on the Hogwarts grounds. There meteorites are hidden in actual posts as is represented by this image: You will find meteorites in the following threads: The Courtyard The Pathways The Great Lake The Playground The Whomping Willow Your task is to go looking through the threads on the Hogwarts grounds until you stumble upon a post containing this image. When you do, you are to quote the post () and post that quote (by copy pasting) along with the location and post number in THIS THREAD with your character finding it on the grounds and returning to the classroom with their meteorite in hand. So, for example, this would look like: Quote: Airey walked along the pathways keeping a keen eye out for anything otherworldly...and then he saw IT! Quote: Originally Posted by post where meteorite image is found BLAH BLAH BLAH RP POST FROM SOMEONE HERE BLAH BLAH BLAH Nearly wetting himself with excitement, he picked up the space rock and sprinted back to the classroom, taking the steps on the moving staircases three and four at a time. Pathways, post #1 You only need to find ONE such post. This is not a race. There is no special reward for being the first student to IC find and collect a meteorite and return to the classroom. I will be keeping track of posts to make sure that no two people claim the same meteorite. When this does happen, Airey will IC inform your student that they have brought back something else and you will need to go find another post, so do be sure to check back in this thread and try not to find a repeat! But if you do, it’s okay <3 I will give at least 48 hours for this activity so people in all timezones have a chance. Please feel free to direct any questions to me via PM or VM. Thank you all again for your patience and participation <333 __________________ When you're stuck in a moment and your spark has been stolen .................................................. ........... this is our time to own it, so own it..................................... baby we were born with fire and gold in our eyes Last edited by sweetpinkpixie; 07-01-2016 at 01:20 PM.