SPOILER!!: Answers

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhoenixRising

It was way late, but truth be told Skylar didn't mind because they actually had legit reason to be out of bed and thankfully her morning classes the next day had been pushed back to accommodate for the unordinary time of the Astronomy class.

Propping her hands under her chin, she pinched her cheeks lightly to perk up just a bit, as the Professor began the lesson. Talking about moons. Ugh, what was it with professors asking questions that she was ninety percent sure they were supposed to teach the material before asking the questions? It was like a pre-quiz. And it was bloody annoying. As if she knew how many moons were present in the solar system. None technically, since people were required to wear pants / space suits and therefore couldn't moon anyone, but Skylar kept those thoughts to herself because it was not the answer the teacher was looking for.

"Moons don't just orbit the eight major planets though, Professor," Skylar said upon raising her hand. "They also orbit minor planets and dwarf planets, which are indeed also part of solar system and it would be counterintuitive to exclude them from our discussion just because they don't orbit one of the major eight planets. So basically, of the major planets, there's over three hundred moons, but counting ALL the moons present in our solar system, there could be thousands or even millions of moons."

"Yes, Skylar that's very correct. I'm not excluding any of the dwarf planets at all. It was merely an estimate of about how many planets are in our solar system. If it sounded like I was singling out any of the other planet or any asteroids then I'm sorry but that wasn't my intention."

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Originally Posted by Lady of Light

How many moons? Etta thought for a few moments. The Hufflepuff remained quiet until someone else had finished answering the question before raising a hand.

"Most of the planets in our outer solar system have moons orbiting them.. and I've read that smaller asteroids have moons orbiting them as well.. so one has been able to come up with an exact number, professor. Many are yet to be discovered, I think." Short and simple, yes? She leaned back against her seat and started to doodle on her parchment, waiting for the class to move on.

"That's correct, even though there are eight planets in our solar system there are asteroids that have an orbit and are able to have moons."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Banana

So that Charlottle girl pretty much knew everything, didn't she? And even if she DIDN'T know the right answer, literally everything she said sounded like she'd opened her mouth and a Ravenclaw had jumped out. Why wasn't she in Ravenclaw anyway? Hmm. Must be that whole 'traits are more common for another house instead' thing that Brent figured applied to him and all, too. After all, he'd been sure he'd be a Gryffindor...

Anyway...moons. Brent had no idea how many moons were in the solar system. "I don't know. Maybe like a hundred and fifty or something?" he guessed, raising his hand. This was kind of like those games he'd played at birthday parties as a little kid. You know, where the mom puts a ton of Bertie Botts into a jar, and the person who got the closest guess got a prize? Yeah. This was totally like that.

"In that general area there are about that many moons."

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Originally Posted by Tegz

Moons.

Char didn't mind the moon. She always thought it was a sort of... comforting thing. You could rely on it, it was always there ever you expected it to be. She supposed other moons were much the same really, and she wasn't sure how many there were, didn't the number keep changing?

Her hand went up.

"I don't think anyone knows for sure how many moons there are, professor. The official count changes all the time as new ones are discovered, so there are probably actually hundreds, maybe even thousands, muggles haven't got the technology to be exact about it, because of orbits and stuff, if you don't know something exists then you can't exactly know where it should be. So any reported number should be followed by 'that we know about so far'."

Maybe she would have some tea later, but for now she was okay.

Caroleena pointed towards Charlotte seeing as her hand had gone up. "Correct. With each technological advances there are more and more moons are being discovered everyday. I'm sure and this is just my opinion that one day the muggles and the wizarding world will know exactly how many moons are in our solar system but until now it's just an estimate." She didn't think it would happen in her lifetime though, maybe in theirs.

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Originally Posted by Suziella

Juno tried not to beam too much when Leon called her Jun. They were in the middle of class! She had to behave. She gently nudged him back with her shoulder. He was too cute.

Juno knew this answer! She quickly raised her hand and waited to be called on. Once she was she answered, "There are at least 146 classified moons and I believe there are another 27 that are waiting for their official confirmation. So that would put the number at around 173 moons." Yeah....she was a little bit of a nerd.

"Yes, Miss. Darcy, that's very true."

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Originally Posted by Goblinfrog

Wait, how many moons WERE there anyway? That information wasn't something she'd ever learned before, so it was very appropriate she thought for the professor to bring it up. Of course she knew the Earth had one moon, but beyond that she couldn't be certain. Kitty raised her hand. "I don't know, Professor," she admitted.

Honestly! "Thank you for your honesty and not just blurting out a wrong answer." She loved honesty from students.

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Originally Posted by Lissy Longbottom

Salvatore was offering them TEA?! This really WAS an unexpected lesson. Kane smiled at her and decided to take her up on her offer, walking over and brewing himself a cup of black tea before returning to his seat. His classmates had already started answering the question, and Kane honestly had NO idea how many moons there were.

A lot was his true answer, but he knew he had to try and give her SOMETHING specific.

So, there was their moon, plus two around Mars (it was two, right?!) and then...uh, a lot around Jupiter and Saturn. He was just going to guess. He raised his hand. "Um, a hundred?" he said. He knew that wasn't right...but points for trying, maybe?

"You're about right."

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Originally Posted by FwooperOnYourLeft

Ohhh! This was a question he actually sorta knew.. Ish..

Leon raised his hand and spoke.. "There are somewhere around One Hundred and eighty moons in the solar system.. ish " He added, seeing as there were asteroids that might have counted as moons..

His mother moved Astronomy and things of such nature, and Leon had a head full of fact like this..

Though this was the first time it had come in handy.

"Very close to the number that they have today."

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Originally Posted by Crayola

Tea? No, thank you. Daisy wrapped her blanket tighter around her legs and observed the Professor suspiciously. Professor Salvatore was rarely this ... nice and tea was the optimal way to poison someone. Nah, she'd force herself to remain awake and avoid any liquid offered by the staff, thank you.

And if she fell asleep, would it really be that bad?

Lazily, she took notes on the information that was being shared with them; she still didn't know if she was taking Astronomy after this year but she had OWLs to pass so she should at least try. Or really try. As for how many moons there were in the solar system, she had no idea. There were eight planets, right? So surely there weren't that many moons? Did all planets have a moon? Wait, wasn't there one planet that had like a gazillion of them? The Slytherin raised her hand; she had no idea of what the answer was buuuuuut ... well, she was guessing. "Is it twenty moons?"

Probably not.

"Sadly no, there's many more than just twenty moons."

"The question I just asked was more of an estimate of what information that we know." Maybe next time she should speak clearer so that the student could understand it better but she thought her wording of the question would be easy enough to understand. There was a mental note for next time. "There are many moons being discovered as we speak. With that being said, planet wise, yes I'm talking about the eight planets in our solar system right now," Caroleena paused for a moment. She took out her wand and made models all eight of the planets appear from the ceiling. "Mercury and Venus have no moons. We all know Earth has one moon. Mars has two moons, Jupiter has sixty-seven moons." A big planet needed a lot of moons. "Saturn has sixty-two moons. Uranus has twenty-seven moons and lastly Neptune has fourteen moons."

She wanted to go back to Jupiter. "Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and out of all of the planets it has the most moons but there are four very important moons that can we see by a telescope and binoculars. These moons are called the Galilean moons, they're the four largest moons of Jupiter. These moons were discovered by Galileo Galilei in January 1610. In March 1610 Galileo recognized the moons as satellites. This was the first time in history that there was an object that orbits another planet." Honestly she could have a whole lesson on just these moons alone. "The names of these moons are derived from the lovers of the Greek God, Zeus." The woman walked back to the front of her desk and leaves against it.

"Can anyone name all four of the Galilean moons?"

OOC: Class will continue in about 24 hours.