Reese should have attended beginner's Astronomy NOT advanced. If she was smart enough, she would have. This was her worst subject and anyone probably already knew that since most people saw her walking around the school with her Astronomy for Dummies book. But here she was, standing in front of the door for advanced Astronomy. Yay?

Taking in a deep breath, the Slytherin headed into the room with a little smile across her face. "Good evening, Professor," she greeted the woman before taking a seat in one of the desks in the front of the classroom.

Rubbing at one of his eyes in clear tired...ness... Jake followed who he assumed to be his sister into the classroom. The boy gave the professor a small mumbling acknowledgement and small wave before he sat near his sister.

Whyyyy didn't he go to Beginners?

Herminny happilly walked into the Advanced Astronomy classroom. She loved Astronomy and as a 4th year she was extatic to take her 1st Advanced class ever. As she made her way to her seat she saw the new professor who looked like a n,ice women and said, "Hey professor", and then prceeded to take a seat.

It was not going to be like last term.

Raiden silently reminded himself of this as he made his way up to the Astronomy Tower. It was not going to end with Daphne trying to toss herself out a window because a grossly overweight old man had run amok vomiting on everyone.

There was a new professor.

She looked nice.

Therefore... it would be nothing like last term.

Right?

"Hello Professor," he said, managing a smile as he made his way to a desk near the front.

She wouldn't vomit on everyone. She wouldn't. Nope.

Nikki walked into the Astronomy Tower chewing on my her watermelon flavored gum. She had avoided taking Astronomy last year due to the fact that she had heard the professor hadn't been all that nice. But that didn't mean she hadn't been up here. History of Magic had taken place up here.

"Hello Professor." She said greeting the professor. She looked fairly nice. Finding an empty seat, Nikki sat down and waited for class to begin.

Maidee, finally finished grading the Beginner's Class homework, looked up in relief as the students began to enter. "Good evening," she greeted those who greeted her.

"We'll wait just a few minutes more," she told them, shuffling through her papers, finding the article this class would discuss.

Fred climbed up to the Astonomy Tower with a frown upon his face. He was never particularly good at Astronomy but iven the two options he felt like he was belittling himself going to the beginner class at 16. And thus he made his way into the classroom with his book in hand and took a seat hoping he would do ok in the class but either way he is gonna try his best.

Maidee started class.


She moved about the room, handing out the article she had wanted to discuss in class.

"We're going to be a little more relaxed in class," she told them, "I'll try to have a real, more normal lesson, next time, but I happened to come across this article, and I not only had to share it with you all, but I also wanted us to discuss it."

Meh.

Astronomy. Sure Livvy liked to look up at the stars every now and then, but she couldn't really say she had much interest in the subject... nor was she actually good at the subject. What happened to just looking at stars and naming the constellations? But no... they had to go into all of the specifics. Livvy only liked subjects that she was good at. Those she didn't have much talent in, she viewed disagreeable.

But who said she had to view the new professor disagreeable right? No one. That's who. "Hello professor," Livvy greeted with a small smile and made her way towards an empty desk.

And then. Class started. Yayyy... She took hold of the article that was being passed around and began to read it.

Maidee reread the article herself to keep it fresh in her mind. She knew she would be referring to it throughout class, but it helped if she would at least try to keep it to memory.

"I know this is a little more like Astrology, and as such, Divination, but I am not asking you to read the planets for signs of on coming disasters, nor will I teach you how to do such things. If that's what you want to learn, seek out your Divination professor.

"What I want us to discuss is exactly what's in this article. Could the planets line up just right to cause a major disaster?"


ooc: since there are not many people on right now, I'm going to go on to bed. As this is a discussion class, you may talk freely to yourselves, though the preference is to share your views IC with the class, not speak to your friends and let others know OOC.

I know that this just may become a big thread, so I ask that if someone says something almost exactly the way someone else did, give them a break. They may have just had the same thought and didn't read through everything. RESPECT each other. If we have problems with this, the thread will only be open when I can be online.

Jack read over the article a number of times, bouncing his leg anxiously as he read. He was excited because this was his first lesson with the new professor, and he LOVED the stuff they were reading about right now. The planets were totally his favorite part of the solar system!

After reading it numerous times, he raised his hand. The answer was simple, wasn't it? "Professor, I believe that, just based off of history like the article says, an alignment can't cause any major disaster worthy enough of destroying the world. Like the author of the article says, the planets have aligned before and nothing has happened, so why should we believe that in the future that would change?" he suggested.

Gold raised her hand. "Professor, my sense says no," she said cheerfully. "Gravity, though quite an effective force, loses its power with an increase in the distance between two bodies. That sort of renders its ability to cause a huge disaster, ineffective - even in the case of an alignment, it seems pretty likely that the distance factor would eliminate the possibility of massive destruction, such as the earth being torn apart."

"But," and now she looked more thoughtful. "We know that tidal forces can become pretty strong, under specific conditions. That makes me wonder if a disaster might, after all, be possible. I wouldn't say it would be the kind that could destroy the earth, but I do think it might be able to cause some damage to worry about."

Ahh, finally. Audio finally made it through the day to his favorite class. Astronomy has always been the best part about Hogwarts in his opinion. Maybe it was just the concept of the plants and the size of everything that got him, but he loved it none the less.

Before he could even start reading the professor asked the question, and Audio listened to the other students answered. He took specific interest in the Gryffindor girl's answer. Gold... he thinks.

"Yeah, I agree with that last part. I think that it's possible. It may not have a high chance of happening, but yeah- with the right conditions and the right alignments or whatever... it's totally possible."

Dylan frowned as he thought about it. "According to Greek mythology it happened in the past. But I do not believe it could happen. If they were to align I feel it would do good, not bad."

After looking over the article the professor handed out, Adrienne almost felt glad she'd decided to try the subject again, even though she'd sort of boycotted it last term because of Professor Forrester. Professor McFarlane certainly brought some interesting ideas up. Listening to the others, she nodded a little, before she felt the need to respond to some of the others' comments. "Well, anything's possible. Whether or not it's likely planetary alignment will throw gravity and tidal forces out of whack is almost irrelevant, at least hypothetically. even the slightest chance means it could happen." She glanced at Jack, then. "Haven't you ever heard of the concept of there being a first time for everything? Just because historically nothing has happened doesn't make it completely impossible. Even the article is just giving one person's opinion on the subject."

This was it. Astronomy was back. Kiri had been grinning like a maniac as she'd taken a seat right at the front of the classroom. A grin that turned into a more relaxed and balanced expression when class began and the professor handed out an article that would be the basis of today's lesson. Then into a small frown as she read the article.

She wondered if just answering the professor's question with a No would suffice - as there was no other possible answer - but decided to let some of her classmates speak first.

"No," Kiri said anyway, just to enjoy the feel of such a blanket statement. Not very scientific, but effective. She would have to qualify a bit, of course. "First, I don't think gravity is such a terribly effective force," she continued, with a small smile as she considered that she wasn't floating around right now, "it's really weak, and as the article states, the gravitational pull of all the other planets put together doesn't amount to much."

She tapped the parchment with a finger. "But there's something the article doesn't mention. I think it's simply a matter of, you know, probability. The Solar System will be around for another, oh... ten billion years or so," Kiri said loftily, waving a hand about. "The chance that there's going to be that kind of conjunction in that time is low." She grinned. "Astronomically low." They were probably better off worrying about destroying the Earth themselves.
"For the planets to be perfectly aligned, I read that the probability lies somewhere in the range of, er, 86... 86..." She realised she had no clue what the number was called. "86 followed by... 45 zeroes. The age of the Universe has just nine zeroes. It's simply not going to happen."

Rachel wriggled a bit in her seat in order to get more comfortable. She had just finished reading the article and was pondering on her response. As a person who LOVED books - not just magic ones - this triggered something in her memory since she had read quite a few physics books over the years and there was one thing that hadn't been mentioned here...

Or maybe her memory was faulty. Either way, it was worth mentioning. "Professor, I do not think that it is possible for any sort of alignment of the planets to affect the earth. The article puts a strong emphasis on gravity - naturally - and on tidal forces, in particular. Gravity is a weak force, and it's only because the moon is so large and so close to us, all relatively of course, that it has an effect on the earth," she began, and looked down at the article for a second before continuing.

"I'm not sure but I think there is a principle that gravity follows called the Superposition Principle. According to the superposition, gravity is a force interacting between two bodies with no consideration of any other bodies around it. This means that each planet, regardless of the other planets' positions, exerts the same amount of gravity on the earth all the time - and that's why, in my opinion, a catastrophe could not occur from the planets aligning - because there is no importance to where they are in relativity of each other," Rachel said, her hand a little tired from being in the air for so long.

It was slightly scary; the stuff she remembered. Sure, she remembered the Superposition Principle, but the Principles of Potions went in one ear and came out the other! Bleh - she really needed to prioritize her brain.

Then again, it was nice to know stuff. AND, eventually, those Potions things DID stay in her head.

This thing was taking FOREVER to read!

Jake shifted around uncomfortably, glancing at the other students as he stared at the words on the page, following them with his finger. He skipped the big words, but got the maaiiiiinnnn gist of the article. He'd seen something on TV a while back, about this very topic... he thought, anyway... and it had scared the living daylights out of him.

He'd spent the next three days hiding under his bed.

Jake wanted to put up his hand to respond, but nobody else had, and he'd been focusing on the articles to hear many of the instructions, though of course, he knew what they were on about. Waiting for a lull in the conversation, Jake spoke up awkwardly, his fear of public speaking rearing its ugly head.

"I thuhh-think..." he started, shifting around again. Oh jeeeez, what if he said soething that had been mentioned. EEEP! "A tuhhh-true all-alli-... line-up is vuhh-very imppprobably," Jake gestured towards Kiri as he said this. The girl had mentioned that, he knew this for sure. "An' buhh-basically... the puhh-planets are ttttoo fuh-far awuhh-away when thuhh-that ssssupposedly happens ffffor a muhh-major disaster..." Taking another breath, Jake just decided to finish with that and be done with it. "Thhhe muhh-most that mmmmight happen, in muhh-my opinion... is mmmmessed up tttides... But nuhh-nothing on ddddisaster ssscale."

Did that make sense?

No?

Ah, well.

"Erm, I'm not sure that's correct," Kiri spoke up quietly, blushing. She hated disagreeing with her classmates, and this girl looked much older than Kiri - and she was a Ravenclaw. Ordinarily, that would go towards convincing Kiri that she was wrong, but Astronomy was the only subject where she could argue with some authority.

She turned around in her seat to look at the girl. Or, at least, her general direction. "I mean, gravity clearly does not exert the same amount of pull all the time. It depends on the mass of an object and its distance - most of the time, anyway. If a planet is farther away, Earth feels less of its gravity than when it's closer. So, erm, yes, it changes over time. It's not constant."

Kiri was a little more encouraged as she continued, "And even if that was true, I don't think it would, you know, solve the problem stated in the article. If each planet just exerted its gravitational pull on Earth regardless of every other planet, in a conjunction, Earth would still feel all of their gravity coming from one side, and the tidal force would increase.
"I mean, I agree with you, there's absolutely no danger, but I don't think your argument, is, er... is entirely correct." Her face still felt a little hot.

Rachel blinked and turned as a girl began commenting on what she had said. Wha-? Oh. The seventh year nodded as she realised what the girl had said was very, VERY correct.

EEEK! She could NOT be going stupid now - this was her NEWT year!!! O_O

BAAAAAAAAD.


Breathe. "Yeah, I see your point. And it's true - you're right; I didn't really consider the possibility of that before. Thanks," she smiled at the girl, honestly grateful for the correction. Mental note: seek out physics book and REREAD it. Smiling, Rachel turned back to the professor with a sort of apologetic grin. She HATED being wrong - that was something that will never change - but at least she could deal with it now.

Back in her first year she would have burst out crying if someone had actually pinpointed her answer and claimed it to be wrong. Wow - she had actually matured!

Amazing.

Cedric scoured the contents of the article given by the new Astronomy professor, noting some important details. At the first time he'd read the article, it seemed like it didn't make any sense at all 'cause people all know that: centuries, and maybe millenniums ago that the alignment of the planets of the universe cannot cause any harm to the planet they have been living all these time... Earth. But there was this another part of his mind that kept telling him.. who knows! who knows if those other planets can or cannot 'cause any harm to our planet?

He browsed the article for the second time, all of its contents were just predictions, surreal prophecies.. not science-proven facts.. "I don't think the alignment of the planets can cause any harm or disastrous catastrophes to our planet, Professor. It isn't proven yet, right? and we never know what will and may happen. Those are just unreal facts that some freaky people have made to freak out other people.. and I can tell it is working," Cedric stated, then he glanced around, looking to some worried and fear stricken faces of his classmates.

Cela's expression was thoughtful and just slightly enthralled as she listened to Kiri who was far and away, the most knowledgeable person she knew when it came to the mathematical related stuff in astronomy.

She sort of half heartedly put her hand up before speaking her piece, her tone musing.

"Is Earth noticeably effected by any of these other planets individually? It seems like that would be a good sorta place to start. You'd like... umm... mutliply the gravitational force caused by each other body that has any sort of effect on its own or something, right? I mean it says something about that in here about tidal forces with the individual planets and all, but does anyone have a calculation for exactly how big of a tidal force would be required to... you know, tear the Earth in two or knock the Earth off of its axis which I think is more likely than being all... ripped to pieces and stuff."

Maths say what?

"And whats to say that Earth would be the only one that suffers if there is a perfect conjunction? What about Venus, say? And what about like, Pluto -which I totally still think is a planet." Cela said the Pluto thing and sighed a little, thinking of Professor Forrester. "If there was a perfect conjunction, couldn't it be pulled in closer to the centre of the Solar System with the combined forces of all the other planets and the Sun working on it?"

Cela peeked at the article again, gathering her thoughts. "Also, would it depend on exactly how the alignment occurs? I mean, since not all planets have the same orbit shape and stuff, wouldn't it mean there is more than one possible perfect alignment? Like, where the planets are just that little bit closer together?" She nodded at Kiri, "Wouldn't that change that number with the 45 zeros to something different?"

Kiri raised her eyebrows in surprise. Celandine was asking her?
What was going on with the 'Claws today...

It took her a few seconds to gather her thoughts. "Mmm well, perfect alignment means... perfect alignment." She shrugged. "There's only one way the planets can line up like that. Maybe if it occurred a second time, at a different point in the sky, their relative distances would be different, but given the probabilities involved..." No way, the look on her face seemed to say.
"There are other, less absurd scenarios, I think," Kiri continued, "such as... all planets in one line - but on different sides of the Sun - that could occur once every 340 million years. Having them on one side of the Sun, but not in alignment? 180 billion years or so. Still more than ten times longer than the age of the entire Universe, and the Solar System will be long gone by then."

She glanced at the professor, who had been silent so far, merely observing their discussion. Kiri could help with Celandine's first question as well, but wasn't sure if the professor might not want to answer that herself. Correcting people's answers and replying to other people's questions already made her feel as if she was taking charge or something.

Barry looked at Kiri saying how long it would take for the planets to all be in alinement, Barry tried to think of something to say, he wasn`t sure of what they were talking about " But arn`t we talking about this theoreticly? We`re not really expecting this to happen are we?"

Now um his opinion " But I don`t think anything would happen to the earth if they all the planets aligned. There just too far away. I mean the moon is closer to the earth and it doesn`t do anything to it, so what could the planets do from that far away?" asked Barry