Miranda was sort of...staring at the text infront of her. Her eyes were almost narrowed shut as she tried to concentrate on whatever it said on the article.

But...but... she was distracted. Not only by the upcoming extra long Quidditch practice today, but the awful time she had the other day talking to Oliver. Though, sometime inbetween their two arguments that day, they had actually had fun. Or atleast, she had.

She listened to the others talk, and tried to see things from other perspectives.

But the article read something about planets lining up and causing disaster. Maybe that's what they had done that day.

Ugh.

She heard a boy talk, about how the planets were too far away and decided to dully give her opinion. "Maybe it's like the Butterfly effect. If the planets that are so far away move, then something gets disturbed...and so that 'wave' of disturbance keeps going until it hits the moon or the earth. The moon does have some control over the earth, so if that thing gets knocked out of its position...all hell breaks loose." She sighed and looked like she wanted to sleep. But really, she was worried.

"The planets are in their litte spots for a reason I think. Or else we would probably not be here right now. If the planets align, it could cause disaster...or it may not." Shrug. That might not have sounded coherent at all. Worried.

Isabella sat in her seat, watching the other students and writing notes on here pieces of parchment. She'd been happy she had done her homework, meaning she could be here. She liked Astronmy, it was an interesting subject to her.

She smiled lightly to herself, remembering all those books, on this subject, she had read over and over again. Shacking her head a little, she pulled the article the class was disscusion towards her and looked at the first line.

It didnt take her long at all to read the whole article, and to refresh it all in her head. She didnt know what she was going to do, se didnt know how to put her views into words. Instead she looked round the room again, saying "Hello" to no one in particular.

Kiri. MAN. That girl was just... SMART. It always surprised Livvy. The smartness that is. And in Astronomy. Geez oh peez. And here it was her worst subject!

She just sort of stared at the text and the people around her as they spoke, trying to take it all in. Astronomy... was just plain old complex. Everything they said hardly made any sense to her, especially the words that came out of Kiri's mouth. It was like she was born an astronomer. They way she talked. She practically knew everything about this subject! How 'bout they switched lives for the class?

To what a Hufflepuff girl said, Livvy held up her hand to say something. Oh goody. Don't make a fool out of yourself. "I think that what that girl," she paused to nod her head at the Hufflepuff girl, before continuing. "said... makes sense. All the planets are in their exact positions and exist for a reason. They all combine together to make our solar system. Each and every planet affects each and every other planet. Without one, the world and universe would be totally different. They all affect each other in their own way. If something happened to one planet, I believe that all the other planets would be affected in some way also. Just because history has said that nothing of the sort of a disaster has occurred, it could still happen. Even if it's a one in a million chance. A one in a billion. Whatever. It could still happen. The planets rely on each other and the distance could still effect it. Even if the alignment of the planets doesn't create a disaster for the Earth, I'm sure that something else would."

This was the exact reason why Simone loved sitting next to Kiri during Astronomy. She was so incredibly good at it. After reading the article, listening to everyone's comments, and jotting down some notes, she didnt have much to add. Astronomy wasnt her strongest subject, but she liked learning about the universe. Which was another reason for her to be sitting next to Kiri.

She continued to write notes, and listen.

Why?
What in the name of Merlin made her think that attending the ADVANCED Astronomy class would be a good idea? Yes she was an older student, and it was expected perhaps.But this was ASTRONOMY! One of the lessons that Sarah just couldn't get her head around.Maybe because it required her to use her head....

Sat with said head bowed, Sarah carefully read the text they had been given, all the while listening to everyone else's opinions.There wasn't much else she could add, certainly nothing different.Shrugging her shoulders, the words came out as something resembling a mumble. "I don't know.I don't think anything disastrous would happen if, on the extreme off chance, the planets aligned.I mean, it says here," she said, pulling the article closer to her. "That the combined gravity of the planets wouldn't really be much different to our moon, as the pull gets less the further away the object is.Surely it couldn't have much effect if that's the case?" Sarah looked up and around the room.She had just said something stupid, right? She knew it.

Barry listened to everyone talk, why did he have to take everything for his NEWTs? He was obviously going to fail Astronomy. Then this girl spoke and Barry raised his hand "Yeah, I agree with her." Not that it meant much. " The moon is proof that it is unlikely that anything would happen if the planets did align. " He then sighed and wondered if he could get an Acceptable in Astronomy

Jack turned when he realized that...someone was talking to him? Wow, oblivious much, Fritzera?! Glancing at her robes, he saw a blue badge pinned there and concluded that this had to be the new Ravvie Quidditch captain. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't completely disagree with a fellow athlete!

He nodded. "That's true, there is a first time for everything, but I'm looking at it from a purely scientific stand point," he explained with a smile. "Because the planets are all so far away from Earth, the effect of gravity from those planets on OUR planet is very small, so unless the planets somehow migrated closer to Earth, or their gravitational forces somehow increased dramatically, both of which I think are veryyy unlikely, I think one can predict off of history that we're safe."

He hoped she knew he wasn't disagreeing with her just to be difficult. He was one of those people who looked at facts and therefore was slighly stubborn. Hehe.

Nikki took the article that the Professor handed out and read through it carefully.

Planetary alignment?
Cause disaters...
That's comforting isn't it?
Yup...-nervous laugh-

Nikki looked up from the article when the professor began to talk. Why would any of them want to predict disasters? Nikki certainly didn't. Could the planets lining up really cause disasters? "Well I don't think they could. If the author said that no disasters have happened. It's more likely that a disaster won't happen at all." Right? Was that okay? Was that even right?!

Bell raised her hand in the airr, saying, "Professor, i think its stupid. The Planets around us cant line up and destory us, the sun keeps them away from us. In a way. And besides there's been no diasters from the plants yet" She said not taking a breath once, till the end. She smiled happy with her answer.

Chris listened to the other students thoughtfully analyzing there thoughts before he, himself wayed in on the subject of the planets aligning and a disaster happening because of it. "Well I would have to kind of agree with what Jack said." he nodded towards his fellow Gryffindor, "Purely on scientific knowledge, the planets run on their own orbits, so yes it may just consequently be that they all line up, but I don't know how this would conclude with a Disaster to Earth. Why not Mercury, its the first planet in the line not us, or Pluto its last?" he said shrugging his shoulders. "All I am asking is why would it cause something to happen to the randomly third planet in the solar system, and what would cause the disaster. The planets just line-up, but I respectavily will accept others views." he was really interested in what others had to say on this subject. He was excited for this discussion.

Maidee nodded, "Very good point. Maybe the Earth won't be destroyed, but maybe civilization will be due to tidal waves and earth quakes."

She handed the Gyffindor a coupon:



"Very good point, maybe it won't be caused by Gravity, what else can the planets do to destroy the earth that they may affect?"

Maidee was pleased. This was exactly what she had been hoping for! "Very good, girls. For being respectful and mature, you may both have a coupon as well!"

For fire_faerie:

for Antartica!:

"Oh, I'm not sure about that. The Sun hasn't exploded yet, but scientists still believe it will happen. Just because it hasn't happened and isn't planned for anytime soon, doesn't mean it won't. Don't put 'impossible' into your minds!"

"Oh, but the Moon affects the tides because of the moon's gravitational pull, and the Moon is much smaller than the planets."


"Very good! In fact, if the Earth was off by just a little bit, it would either be too hot or too cold for life to be here."

She handed the girl a coupon:

Maidee stared in shock. "Bell, you are NOT to be in this class. You are a BEGINNER'S student."

ooc: please reread the announcement thread. I was explicit that Beginner's and Advanced students were not to be in the same class.


"Very good question." Maidee turned to Chris, "Maybe it wouldn't be a disaster to Earth, but one of the more central planets?"

Chris listened to Professor MacFarlane's response on his thoughts of the subject. "Well I do see what you mean. Just because something doesn't directly happen to Earth, doesn't mean it wont effect us right? I mean if something had happned to another planet, I think it would definately effect us because the galaxy is a complex and structured thing." he nodded.

"I also agree with the idea you and some others had on the possiblity of something minute happening in Space, and causing destruction of civilzation on Earth, such as Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and climate." he nodded. So much good conversation flow!

Barry tried to find somethin to say " So can`t we assume that the planets will do the same, just on a different scale because of the difference of size and distance from the earth compared to the moon. It`ll just affect the tides. At most it could cause a sunami"

... A coupon? This was new. Smiling gratefully, Rachel took the reward from the Professor and smiled as she saw she had recieved one for Puddifoot's. Excellent - that way Jake wouldn't guilt-trip her into giving it to him.

"Thank you, Professor," Rachel looked back up as she neatly placed the coupon in her pocket, then turned to thankfully nod to the younger girl who had corrected her - if it wasn't for her, she wouldn't have received the present.

Now - on with the lesson. "The only thing I can really think of is if a meteor get's caught in our solar system's gravitational pull and it gets sucked down towards our planet THEN I believe the Earth will undergo mass destruction," Rachel nodded, remembering that REALLY old muggle movie she had used to watch with her parents when she was but eight years old.

Armageddon, was it?

Respectful and mature! Kiri accepted the coupon with a big grin on her face. "Thanks, Professor!" She studied it closely for a few moments. Kiri loved Chocolate Frogs.

Something about the conversation still kind of bugged her, though. Scientific curiosity was a valuable thing, of course, but people still seemed to think that the catastrophic event the article talked about was even remotely likely. If the Solar System's orbital mechanics were that jumbled and random, there probably wouldn't have been a Solar System for long, and almost certainly no chance for life to develop on Earth. It had only taken humanity three billion years to arrive on the scene...

"You know," she spoke up again, to anyone who would feel like they wanted to listen, "the, er, asteroid belt... Between Mars and Jupiter? That's basically left over from when the Solar System first formed - it could have been a planet, but the tidal forces of Jupiter were too strong for accretion to occur. So they do have some influence in the Solar System."

Matheu knew that he was only a 2nd year, but he was in great need for an advance route this year. He hardly did much the last term. He has read the advance text 3 times and memorized important key aspects of the basic text (read it 4 3/4 times). He simply sat back in the middle of the class and listened to the older students discuss. Matheu had a thought about the discussion, but he kept it to himself.

Daniel raised his hand and said, "Professor, please." he said then looked at his classmates, "I know everyone knows about what they call the domino effect. It is that effect that when something happens to one part, it will affect the rest. That is also the case of the planets in our solar system." he said looking from the Professor then back to his classmates.

'The planets are held by the gravity of the sun, not only that each other's gravity affect the others too, so one planet may tumble and the rest will follow." he said and then sat down.

Gold blinked. Coupon? She wasn't a bad student but, let's be truthful here, this was her first... and she wasn't too sure if she was happy. The coupons sort of made her nervous, on the inside.

"Thanks, professor!"

"Professor," Gold's hand was in the air again. "I wonder about that, too. When we talk of an alignment, we are talking, not of one gravitational pull, but of several. The forces of gravity that effect the earth during a specific alignment, might cancel each other out, or at least bring themselves to a balance that means no destruction."

"But let's look at the other planets. Mercury, for instance, is really tiny, and I don't believe it has that much of a gravitational force of its own, at least not when compared to most of the other celestial bodies. I think an alignment where the various gravitational pulls on it can't balance each other out, and it crashes into another celestial body, isn't impossible. In fact, it sounds very scarily probable, even though there are a lot of 'ifs' involved - if an alignment happens, if it happens in such a way etc. - and the whole thing seems a very one in a million chance."

Eep!

Maidee nodded, boy, were these students smart! She warily looked toward the student who appeared to be no more than a second year. He hadn't been in the beginner's class, as he should have been, but apparently he wanted to try the harder stuff out. Let's hope he can last the term!

"Let's take it another step further. As you say, Gold, Mercury is much smaller than the other planets, what if the alignment affected Mercury, and it was that planet that was torn apart. What do you think would happen to Earth then?" She left the question open to discussion among the students.

Chris looked over to his co-Prefect and gave her a huge grin. She was really smart. He then listened as Professor MacFarlane gave her next discussion point. He took in the information and then thought about it for a minute before he raised his hand to speak.

"Well Professor, the possiblities of what would happen if Mercury were to be destroyed are endless. But some of them that come to my mind would be it make crash into the sun causing an explosion of a sort. Another very plausable thing would be that the planet would break up into meteors and large pieces of rock, since Mercury is a solid planet, and hit the Earth. These would have a big enough size to do serious harm on our planet. It could also as others said," glance over to Gold. "Through off the complete balance of Earth and the other Planets." he nodded.

Hmm... "Professor, I still don't think such a situation is possible in regard to ANY planet for the simple reason that the chances of the EXACT placement the planets need to be in for one to rip is SO far-fetched that I don't think it will happen," she began, her hand in the air as she talked. The seventh year needed to get that out of her system first since it was crucial, in her eyes, to clear that first.

Now - onto the actual question. "As Chris said," Rachel started again, smiling over at her Gryffindor friend, "I think the biggest chance of the Earth being in danger was if the pieces from Mercury made their way over to our planet, although I don't think we'd even feel anything if the pieces all crashed into the Sun. See, our Sun is so huge compared to the planets that rock pieces the size of Mercury really won't do any damage, in my opinion. Now, I'm not really sure, but I do think that the fact that one planet will be missing will throw the galaxy out of balance...

"... What do you think?" she asked suddenly, turning to the girl who had corrected her before. Apparently she was an Astronomy wiz or something.

Gold nodded, when the professor spoke again. She was such a good teacher, this one! MUCH better than their insane-o Defence teacher. He was, to be very frank, something of a nut.

"I think that would effect Venus, more than the earth," she said thoughtfully, hand sort of in the air. "Since that's the 'wall' between us, and Mercury. Mercury's not the biggest celestial body out there, so I think it's pretty likely that, if it were torn apart, pieces of it wouldn't crash into the earth - maybe into Venus, cause some damage there."

"But that brings us to a scarier possibility - what if a bit of Venus gets torn apart, because of that? That could land our own planet into trouble... of course, there's also the possibility that, if Mercury is ever torn apart, the bits of it would just float around in space, not causing any real damage, but gradually burning up, or being modified in shape or size."

She lowered her hand, with a thoughtful smile.

Nice class, yep!

Kiri doodled away on her copy of the article as she listened to the ongoing conversation. What about Mercury, indeed... She drew a tiny circle.

Well, the Ravenclaw was definitely right, Mercury breaking up was similarly improbable to Earth breaking up. As far as Kiri was concerned, a defining characteristic of solar systems was their stability. Wouldn't be much of a system otherwise, she thought. But just out of curiosity... Kiri opened her notebook on an empty page. She'd need a little room.

After a few minutes full of industrious scribbling and calculating, Kiri put her quill aside. "Alright," she announced. "Nothing whatsoever would happen if Mercury just disappeared." She held up the piece of paper. It was full of numbers and equations. "In comparison to the Sun's gravity, Mercury basically doesn't even register."

She began reading out numbers. "The gravitational force between the Sun and Earth is about, erm..." Kiri paused, blushing slightly. She had no idea about the number's name. Again. "Well, it's 3.52 followed by 22 zeroes. If you subtract the gravitational force of Mercury, er, which is 22 quadrillion Newtons, you're left with... 3.51. Still followed by 22 zeroes."

Kiri replaced the paper on the desk. "So, as far as the maths goes, Mercury isn't important at all," she concluded. "Nothing would happen to Earth. It's of course possible that a chunk of Mercury could break off, but I think the probability it would end up hitting us is extremely low. Most likely it would simply end up falling into the Sun."

Maidee looked around with a shifty look. Apparently the students hadn't quite got the MOST IMPORTANT THING.

"Okay, kiddos, let's ignore pieces of planets hitting us, even though we're not sure the atmosphere would stop them as they are NOT made of ice. Let's talk about the sudden change in gravity going one way or the other. As it was said before, if the Earth was off it's orbit by just a tiny bit in either direction, we would not be here. Imagine, for a minute, what it would mean for us, if the gravity surrounding Earth changed. If Earth got nudged that tiny bit - or more - in either direction."

Gold raised her hand. "Professor, if the earth was nudged by, say, even one cm, it would go off on a tangent." She was good at physics, mark you that. "We would be on a wild ride through space, and the distance between the sun and the earth would continue to increase, to the point where there would be an Ice Age."

"In short ... total destruction."