He entered the Astronomy classroom, gave the professor a small smile as he introduced himself. "Hello professor, I'm Lawliet. Fourth year Slytherin student and looking forward to your class," he said. With that, he made his way towards the back of the room and took a seat.

The boy pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill and began mindlessly doodling stars on it as he waited quietly for class to begin. A couple moments passed and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the professor was holding something that looked vaguely like an exploding star.

"Is that an exploding star toy, professor?" he asked curiously. It looked a lot like the one he had back in his dorm room.

Herminny entered the Astronomy classroom and saw the professor at his desk with a bright star shaped object. As she made her way to her seat she saw it explode and jumped a little as she said a little nerve racked, "Hi professor", and took her seat and watched as the object repared itself and thought, 'wow this class is certainly gonna be intresting'.

No one should have to be sweating in November, but Kiri was. It was very cold outside, and reasonably warm inside, and climbing up all the way to the Astronomy classroom in warm robes and a heavy cloak meant that she had an oily, sweaty face by the time she reached the top of the Tower. She stopped a moment to get her breath back and wipe the sweat off, then she opened the classroom door and slipped inside.

The neat supernova representation on the professor's desk immediately caught her eye, and with a quiet greeting to Professor Forrester, she sat down at the front, staring at the star exploding and reforming.

Jude didn't really have to go that far to get to class, afterall, he was only in the Gryffindor/Slytherin common room before heading up here, to his favorite class, tied up there with Care of Magical Creatures.

Seeing Kiri, Jude gave a little wave and wondered why she looked so exhausted, then greeted the professor with "'Ello professah!" as he took a seat near the front, eyes fixed on the exploding star thing.

Aislynn sat at the back where she liked it. She slouched back in her chair, with her usual face of discomfort. Why do we even need to take Astronomy, she thought, This is such a waste of time, there are more important classes like Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Whoaaaa, that's NEAT!" Clifford beamed excitedly, eyeing the star thingymabob on Professor Forrester's desk. COOLNESS. He wanted one o' those! The Head Boy kept his brown eyes on the toy as he dropped into a seat beside Lawliet.. it was always good to choose a seat beside the smart people. Yup.

"Hello, Good evening," he greeted the students as they entered. Pausing a bit, he began class:

"When stars go pop, a murderous torrent of energy is released. Life on Earth may have been partly extinguished by just such a violent outburst. Stars are generally too far away to be a concern for life on our planet. But certain stellar eruptions have the potential to reach across tens or even thousands of light-years.

The most familiar of these is a supernova, which is the curtain call of a massive star with eight or more times the mass of our sun. When the nuclear fuel runs out for such a behemoth, the collapsing core generates an explosion that outshines an entire galaxy-worth of stars while it lasts.

"A couple supernovae go off in our galaxy every century. But for one of these to have serious consequences for Earth, we would need to be roughly within a 10 light-year radius of the blast. "

Hayley skipped into the Astronomy Class Room...ahh! Stars and moons and planets and otherworldly things were wonderfuuulll!

Oh my goodness! Look at the pretty explody thing! "Hiii Professor!" Hayley said enthusiastically.
ZOMG! THERE WAS JUDE! She hadn't seen that boy in AGES! Oh! And KIRI! Yay! Even if they weren't allowed to talk she was happy they were in the same class!

She smiled at each of them and waved, whispering, "Hi guys!"

Aislynn scoffed at the peppy little first year. She looked at Professor Forrester with slight scorn. It's not that she didn't like the Professor, just the company. She couldn't help but grin.

Satine hurried to class and found her seat at the front of the class and unloaded her supplies...She was instantly memorized by the exploding star...wow...it was so beautiful...it looked like it changed shades of colors as it grew and exploded...

"Howzit Professor! I brought extra parchment and quills for any students that needs them. I'm loving your exploding star...it's amazing!" and she wasn't lying because she soon was doing nothing but staring at the star.

Rachel walked into Astronomy with a smile on her face and quickly skipped over to find a seat. Lowering her bursting book bag onto the floor, she began to take out her things when a bright light suddenly appeared and caused her to jump. Looking up, and narrowly missing the table, she grinned as she saw Professor Forrester's bursting star thingy.

"That's really neat, Professor," she commented, watching with wide eyes as the thing exploded yet again and then returned back to normal.

Okay, Herminny thought, that certainly explains the exploding star shaped object on his desk she thought as she took out her quil and parchment and started to take notes.

Eyes widening as he began his lesson, Rachel began to take notes as the professor talked. Boy, he sure is fast...

Laura was sitting in the middle of the class, somewhere to the right, and she had a really good view of the proffesor, and yes; her exploding star. It wasn't lik she hadn't seen one of them before; her sister had had one - it was just she'd never seen such a brilliant, dazzling one.

Stars and space really interested Laura, and she was mesmerised as the professor began to speak. She understood what the professor was saying, and it just interested her more. Studying them would be - ah, amazing!

Pulling herself from her daydream, the young ravenclaw caught the end of Professor Forresters sentance and hurridly caught up on her notes: taking her parchment from her bag and scribbling down everything he had said.

"But certain stellar eruptions have the potential to reach across tens or even thousands of light-years," Aislinn said under her breath as she continued to doodle on her parchment, pretending to take notes.

Satine was snapped back into reality when she realized that she was already behind on notes...o great!...ugh...don't look at the star she told herself...and caught back up as quick as she could...

Hayley decided it might be a good idea to take notes so that she'd remember all this stuff . It was rather fascinating.
She gave her parchment a quick once-over. That should do for now.

Aislynn let out a loud yawn. She looked to see if anyone heard, but it looked like everyone was intently scribbling away on their parchments.

"Thank you for joining us, ladies. Satine, consider my not taking house points off you thanks for bringing the extra supplies for the Hufflepuffs. Rachel, 5 points for arriving late."

He looked around the room again and continued:

Certain star explosions, called hypernovae, have much greater reach. Ten times more powerful than typical supernovae, hypernovae are the source for long-duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs), which are high-energy beams emitted along the dying star's axis. A GRB could travel 6,500 light-years and still inflict terrific damage on Earth, Thomas says.

The number of GRBs is much less than the number of supernovae, but the exact rate in our galaxy is still a matter of debate. A few years ago, a group of astronomers calculated that the likelihood of a GRB going off near us was very low, due to the fact that GRBs tend to arise in young galaxies with less heavy elements than the Milky Way.

But Thomas says that subsequent analyses have called this calculation into question, partly because our galaxy has merged in the past with smaller, younger galaxies that could have brought GRB-ticking-time-bombs in with them. "Our likelihood for hosting a GRB could vary with time," Thomas says.

He speculates that on average a GRB lights up our galaxy about once every 10 million years.

Aislynn was contemplating of asking a question. Why should we listen to what this Thomas had to say, she thought. It was probably some muggle just speculating. Besides Earth has encountered any kind of gamma-ray activity since 2004.

Satine heard her name and was mortified...she hadn't realized that the professor had already started...it must've been that stupid exploding star...ugh!...she would've died if she had lost points for the house...

She hurriedly caught up with the notes and made a mental note to apologize personally to the professor at the end of class.....

Scary things, those GRBs. Most of them happened unimaginably far away, but they were powerful enough to still be seen here, on Earth.

Kiri raised her hand. "I read that gamma ray bursts do hit the Earth sometimes, but they are coming from very, very far away. Like several billion light years, so they get noticed, but they don't do any damage. Are there any stars massive enough in our vicinity to be able to produce one of those bursts?"

Jude raised his hand, "Excoos meh, Professoah, bu' who is dis 'Thomas' man yer talkin' 'bou'?" he asked, his pen poised over his parchment, waiting to finish his sentence.

Hayley continued to furiously scribble down notes. Merlin's Fancy Pants this professor talked fast! Her quill ripped through the paper in a few spots. Drat!
She liked her notes and papers to look GOOD! Oh well, she sighed deeply. She could always redo them later...pfft.