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The sun has long since been down and if it weren't for the Heating Charms placed on the Astronomy classroom it would be quite chilly. The desks are arranged in their usual semi circle to help created a more personal environment. Professor Flamsteed's desk is positioned in the “front” of the classroom and is entirely empty save for a small black box located EXACTLY in the middle of the desk. The suited astronomer can be seen squatting to the side of his desk talking to the large fish tank he has been spotted with all around the castle ever since the opening feast.
So come on in and find your seat. Oh, and don’t forget to use the lint roller on the small table outside of the classroom next to the sign that reads, "Not to be used as a brush for your hair."
This lesson has officially started! Please do not announce your character arriving late and just pretend like they have been in class all along. You are free to jump in any time and should use the lesson progression links to keep up.
Miss Edwards received a nod and a faint smile from the astronomer. He was a bit concerned that her silence was in relation to the egg incident. Did this mean that the usually very talkative Gryffindor was giving him the silent treatment?
He sort of wiggled his way past her and on to the next raised hand.
---
"Alright, in our timeline of the universe's formation we have reached a period of exponential expansion and as it is expanding it is also cooling. During this time, light chemical elements were created. These were created within the first three minutes of the universe's formation. Despite these elements being present, it was too hot for light to shine and it would take about 380,000 years before matter cooled enough for electrons to combine with nuclei to form neutral atoms. We are skipping over several stages of the universe's evolution here, but this phase of neutral atoms forming is called recombination and is a term I would like you to remember. As these electrons were absorbed, the universe to become transparent and light was finally unleashed. This light is still detectable today."
Which was pretty neat, right? That even now we were still able to catch a glimpse of some of the first light in the universe.
"However, after the era of recombination came something I like to call the Cosmic Dark Ages, which is said to have lasted between 150 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang." He paused for a moment and wished he had some water with him. Awful lot to talk about and his throat suffering. "You may use your textbooks for this next question if you wish, but who can tell me in your own words, what the HUDF.YD3 is and why is it significant? Try to keep your response as concise as possible. Stick to the big picture if you can."
Sarah was listening intently... very interesting how all these factors came together to make the theory probable. She turned the page in her text book the professor had mentioned... all very interesting too.. Why did they have to study this now anyway? Couldn't they go back to stargazing? Or if the professor wanted something different they could make a trip to Mars and visit the people there, seeing how the muggles found a way to live on the planet over half a century before. But the big bang... science... This was not interactive enough.. except for the egg, which was a waste.
What was HUDF.YD3? Sarah began to page through her textbook, until she found it.. She read and read, taking it all in. Then it dawned on her what the big bang had to do with astronomy.. all these billions years meant something as to the distance from earth.... She raised her hand and waited her turn to be called on. By then, the others had already said what she wanted.. instead of not answering at all Sarah said, "The others said basically what I wanted to say, however, one thing caught my eye and it will make it easier to remember some facts in the future. I think 'ten' plays part of this. It was given its name on the tenth month of the tenth year of this century and... its diamater is one tenth of our galaxy! Oh, and professor, I have a question. You see the light we see from this galaxy, as little as it is, was emitted 13 billion years ago- does that mean that we are not living in the present due to the speed of sound and light. I mean, what you are hearing now, I actually said a fraction of a second ago..."
Yeah I broke that mirror, so what? ll NOT backward ll Official Gryfferin ll Lemon's favourite
Alexa was trying, she really was, but did no one else see how hard it was to ignore that Kevin kid? Despite her best efforts to pretend he didn't exist and in fact wasn't over there being rude, it was getting hard to. She'd made the mistake of correcting one Gryffindor before and that didn't go well with the Professor or the kid so..........lookit the Head Girl stepping in. Better Ella than her, yeah? She said nothing and watched with a level of detachment as the Professor stepped in.
Were they moving on now? Excellent.
Lex flipped open her text, being able to and began skimming the page. You know what? This was a lot of complicated crunched into one page. Left to herself she'd just read from the text so the girl would keep quiet and wonder where Alice got that Ravenclaw answer from. From where she was sitting it didn't even look like she was reading from the book.
Lex sat quietly twiddling her thumbs. Activity please? She was lost in this dscussion.
__________________
Imma say all the words inside my head____________________________________
______________________________I'm fired up and tired of the way that things are said.
curly haired prefect - "sometimes I get angry!" - 30/90 - *chicken emoji* - probably @ Disney - I speak dog
What the WHAT is? Was that a robot? Caleb blinked and quickly jotted down the weird number - letter thing Flamsteed mentioned and then opened his book. It sounded really complicated and he was NOT looking forward to what he'd find when he finally got the right page...
Wow. That was a lot of letters. And numbers. But what WAS it. Caleb's head was just swirling with this nonsense. He read the same passage over and over until he thought he FINALLY had a good grasp on what it was.
"Professor, HUDF.YD3 is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which is like a layer of the universe that extends way past ours. It was believed to be the...second furthest thing away from us? I think? Anyways, if we study it, we can probably get some better insight into the creation of the galaxy," he explained.
Yup. That was as detailed as he could get. What happened to STARS and stuff? He wanted to learn more about those, not these things with letters and numbers. What was this, Arithmancy??
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I'm still standin'________________________________________ better than I ever did
Lookin' like a true survivor_________________________________feelin' like a little kid
So he wanted to know what surfboards had to do with the Big Bang. Nigel was assuming it was not rhetorical because he could come up with a reason. It was not to hard. "I like to view it as a representation of the Big Bang creating the universe, dark matter, stars, and all the other awesome thing"
And all Nigel was doing is creating a surfboard on his parchment. So that was Nigel's tiny ramble on what surfboards had to do with the Big Bang. He did ask Nigel the question. So back to the regular question. Yeah. "It is in a period of star birth and can teach us a lot about the early history of the universe"
Since you know we don't have a tardis that can travel that far back in time to view to beginning of the universe. Which would be so awesome.
__________________
-------------------------------------Be a pineapple: Stand tall,
-----------------------------------------wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside.
Heck, yeeees. Delilah was definitely refering to her textbook because she literally had no idea what it was. She read for a bit, furrowing her brows in concentration. Oh, man. This stuff was quite complicated but interesting. Yes, definitely interesting.
The Hufflepuff finally raised her hand. "Um.. professor.. from what I understand it is a galaxy that is close to the earth? And um.. also, it's supposedly really old and closer to the big bang... and it'll help us in understanding the universe better?"
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Ummm...yeah. Sophie was definitely going to use her textbook on this one. How did some of her classmates know this stuff without the book anyway? Were they some walking around encyclopedia or something?
Sigh.
Sophie flipped through her textbook in search of the answer. Sounded just like a jumble of letters and numbers to her. She raised her hand. "It says here that it's the Hubble Ultra Deep Field," she said. Okay, so...what was it? "It's a...galaxy?" Yeah. She was terrible at this. "Err, I have no idea why it's so significant, but that," she said, then pointed to Adi (FearlessLeader19), "sounds good."
Loves the Black Dog | Ninja Pirate...BEWARE! | High Queen of Narnia | GIRAFFE- made you look!
SPOILER!!: Professor
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie
"Inflation, you got it," he said, giving the girl a thumbs up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Alright, in our timeline of the universe's formation we have reached a period of exponential expansion and as it is expanding it is also cooling. During this time, light chemical elements were created. These were created within the first three minutes of the universe's formation. Despite these elements being present, it was too hot for light to shine and it would take about 380,000 years before matter cooled enough for electrons to combine with nuclei to form neutral atoms. We are skipping over several stages of the universe's evolution here, but this phase of neutral atoms forming is called recombination and is a term I would like you to remember. As these electrons were absorbed, the universe to become transparent and light was finally unleashed. This light is still detectable today."
Which was pretty neat, right? That even now we were still able to catch a glimpse of some of the first light in the universe.
"However, after the era of recombination came something I like to call the Cosmic Dark Ages, which is said to have lasted between 150 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang." He paused for a moment and wished he had some water with him. Awful lot to talk about and his throat suffering. "You may use your textbooks for this next question if you wish, but who can tell me in your own words, what the HUDF.YD3 is and why is it significant? Try to keep your response as concise as possible. Stick to the big picture if you can."
OOC: keep doing what you are doing guys because you all are awesome <3
Class will resume sometime my tomorrow. Giving a precise time frame is obviously not working out for me so well, but expect at least 24 hours before class moves on <3
Awesome, one right-ish answer. She gave the Professor a small smile and went back to scribbling notes, wanting to make sure that the answer was clear for later referencing... most likely late one night right before the exam. But, at last she had it written down.
At the next question, her mind pulled a blank. She began to leaf through the text book, but she figured it would be better just to let the others take this one. However, she still made an attempt on her parchment as to what the abbreviation could stand for...
Huge universe dazes finders. Young daring 3?
How unicorns dye fur. Yellow dye 3?
Hobos use dangerous fuel. You don't 3...
These were just getting more and more ridiculous. Tessa stopped trying and just waited. Anything would make more sense than those did.
Blinking at the Professor's next question, Ava quickly scratched the unusual series of letters and numbers onto her parchment and then laid down her quill to flex her tired fingers. 'HUDF.YD3'? The term meant nothing at all to the first year. It was clearly an acronym for something but what? Pretty much the only thing she COULD be certain of was the fact that she had never heard of it before.
Listening to her classmates' answers, she took up her quill again to jot some notes down.
*HUDF.YD3 is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
*a galaxy in the constellation Fornax
*30 billion lightyears away from our own galaxy
... and on and on she wrote, trying to keep up with everything being said.
urine trouble | Pat's Strong Confident Other Half | Pees Like a Champion Unicorn Racehorse
Flamsteed had noticed. BLINK. This... was embarrassing. Could he read minds? Please say no. "No no, I'm fine sire," ... Sire?! No. Too late. Move on. "Erm... just feeling a bit... hot. Thanks for the concern." He gave the man a nod and a smile before covering his cheeks with his hands. Embarrassing.
Moving on? Yeah? Good.
10 to the -32 was very small. The boy picked up his quill and jotted down some notes, silently hoping that his cheeks would stop being so... red. They had no reason to be. Not... really. And they were in a lesson which meant that he needed to concentrate. Recombination. Cosmic Dark Ages. Concentrating, he was.
Oh they could use the textbook for the next question? Awesome. The question sounded hard enough so... Alec flipped to the correct page in the textbook and gave it a quick scan. HUDF.YD3? Why was it significant? This was hard. Just like it was hard to keep his answer... concise and without a question thrown in there.
Lots of people had said their own smart answers so... he was going to offer his. Whether it was smart or not was something that the Head Boy was going to leave up to Astro Man Flamsteed to decide. After a while, he raised his hand in the air. "It's a small patch of... space? Yeah, space that's found in the constellation of Fornax, which is... in the Southern Hemisphere?" Quick check at the book. Nod. "Yeah. I guess the HUDF image was taken there because... because there's a low density of bright stars relatively nearby so... so it's easier to see things that are dimmer and further away."
Sweet solstice. What in Merlin's point hat and grey hair was all this about? Airey simply stared at the Gryffindor for a few moments in complete shock about how obsessed someone could be over their hair. If it had been over a clean uniform or a suit, sure, he could understand. But it was hair. Maybe this boy should go talk to LeoBALD about this. They could wallow in their woes of bad hair days together.
Thankfully, Miss Ella stepped in and said something. So at least he didn't have to demand some respect from the boy. Cross one thing off the checklist of things to say to him now. When Miss Winters spoke, complimenting the boy and his hair, Airey chuckled and then realized just HOW many of his students were graying already.
But first, to deal with this class disturbance...once Miss Greenwell finished her piece. True words too, Miss Greenwell. Didn't they say that nice guys finish last or something to that regard? Then again, there was a saying for just about everything and a counter saying for that saying, so he was just going to let that rest and have the boy figure those things out on his own just like everyone else. He had a lesson to teach.
"If you do not like the way I handle my classroom, Mr. Hirase, you can go discuss the matter with your Head of House. Just know that doing so will not help you get your hat back any more quickly," he said as he tapped the wood beside the hat on his desk. "A few grey hairs is no reason to cause such a scene in my, or any professor's, classroom."
And since they were on the subject of grey hair.
"I hope you all are not stressing yourself so early into the term," he said while pointing to his head to indicated the whole hair situation he was observing among the students. "Or perhaps some of you should go see the Healer about the possibility of alopecia areata tomorrow." Small pause. What? He had read about that in a book somewhere.
He paused and looked around the classroom some more before his eyes fell on Mr. Hirase one last time. "Now, if you don't mind I would like to continue my lesson."
Now where was he...oh yes, looking for raised hands.
Airey grinned at Miss Asteroid and gave her a thumbs up. "Very good, Miss Asteroid! After the Big Bang, things cooled off very quickly, but then things began to heat back up again and all this caused the universe to undergo an extremely rapid exponential expansion."
Hmmmmmmmm. Airey did not linger this time, not wanting to draw more attention to the quiet quidditch captain. Maybe tryouts had the boy exhausted? All the quidditch captains were looking a little worse for wear. Or...was something else up?
He really needed to stop reading the school's gossip rag.
Oh...oops. How could he have forgotten that? He was usually good with names. "Oh, right, forgive me, Miss Constantin.....Konstantinova," he said with an apologetic bow of the head. Sweet solstice he had nearly just done it again. "Not the name of the period, exactly, but still correct. We must all place special attention to detail with our terminology whenever we can. Inflation is not the name of the period, but the act the early universe undergoing an extremely rapid exponential expansion."
Airey got excited with the Gryffindor's answer initially, but then his face dropped quite suddenly. Earth? Surely the seventh year had confused a few theories in her head, right? "While you are correct in the first step being called the Planck epoch in the timeline of the universe according to the Big Bang Theory. Up to 10 to the –43 second after the Big Bang took place to be specific. Earth will not come into the picture until at at least 9 billion years after the Big Bang."
Airey simply gave the Hufflepuff an approving nod for his attentive listening and note taking. Good to see good to see.
Note taking from the funny Gryffindor. Good good. He flashed the boy two thumbs up as he passed, not taking the time to really read what all the boy was writing since there was another hand raised.
The astronomer couldn't resist carrying the boy's beat himself by drumming a little on his desk and ending it all with a quick rap of his knuckles. Which ended up cracking again and the professor winced as he pulled his hand back to rub them. Ouchy.
"Very good, Mr. Bartholomew."
TWO THUMBS UP TO YOU! Students seemed to really like to compare the universe to a balloon, but hey, if it helped them visualize how things worked then he was all for it. "Very good, Mr. Tinker."
He gave the boy a few nods while a grin spread across his face. He hadn't planned on going into the history of things too much since he wanted this lesson to be a general overview, but if students were going to bring it up then why not, right? "Some would argue that the initial notion of inflation actually dates back to Albery Einstein and his introduction of the cosmological constant. However, it was Alan Guth who is credited for proposing inflation in 1980." Very close, young man. "I am afraid I do not have time to go into these models you mentioned today, but if you or anyone else is interested in a bit of extra reading you can find some information in your textbook on page 901."
"While not the scientific name, if it helps you remember the real term then by all means keep using that in your mind," he saluted the boy.
Oh, Airey still considered it a bang, but it was not a bang in the traditional sense. Out of the box thinking sort of bang. "In laymen's terms, yes, that is a good way to look at the way things occurred. Although, I would recommend replacing the word bigger with expanded. A growth spurt and expanded."
He grinned at the Gryffindor. "Yes, very good." Thumbs up to you too. That would open up the can of worms of matter and anti-matter, but there was not enough time this lesson to go into detail regarding that.
He nodded to the Head Girl, appreciative for both her answer and her assistance with the roudy Gryffindor earlier.
"It is indeed!" he grinned at the Ravenclaw...who had seemed to have lost her voice? Was it cooler in here than he thought? Maybe he should turned up the heat and re-administer the charms. Couldn't have students getting sick and losing their voices.
"Very good, Miss Starr," he grinned at the girl. Was she aware that her name was fascinating? There seemed to be many students this term who had names that were very intriguing to the man. Very intriguing indeed.
He nodded towards the Hufflepuff seventh year as he made his way around the semicircle. Note taking appreciated!
Airey snorted and choked back on some laughter at her response. "Surprisingly fitting, Miss Colbert. While not a term astronomers would use, that is a good way to think about things. Universe expanding much like you all grow in your teen years. Matter and anti-matter, protons and neutrons collided to make deuterium...new things popping up all over the place like pimples on faces..."
Alright, he was going to stop before he started reliving his teen years and became even more awkward than he already was.
Oh dear, maybe it was too hot in the classroom? "You alright there, Mr. Summers? Should I open a window or call the Healer? You are looking a little flushed," he said as he looked at the Head Boy.
Oh, but he had a question. Of sorts.
"While the actual duration is unknown to astronomers at present, it is guessed that the inflationary epoch ended around 10 to the –32 seconds after the Big Bang occurred."
Hmmmm? Was the boy just stretching his arms? Airey noticed Mr. Tempus' hand go up and down a few time out of the corner of his eye a few times and debated whether or not to ask the boy if there was something he wanted to say, but instead opted to let the boy speak on his own terms. He did give a smile to Mr. Tempus before moving on, however.
"That IS what happened, but it is not the name we will use because much more than just expansion happened at this point in the universe's timeline. But a good guess."
Miss Edwards received a nod and a faint smile from the astronomer. He was a bit concerned that her silence was in relation to the egg incident. Did this mean that the usually very talkative Gryffindor was giving him the silent treatment?
He sort of wiggled his way past her and on to the next raised hand.
And he kept wiggling his way past the Ravenclaw as she took notes. Wiggle wiggle OUCH....oh, that had been a misstep. He stopped his wiggling and rubbed his back and walked like a normal person....
...right on past the Ravenclaw prefect. Pausing to see that the boy was not taking notes...but doodling surfboards?
"Do tell me, Mr. Barrington, what surfboards have to do with the Big Bang," he asked, arms folded and eyebrow raised. Ah the benefits of having the classroom arranged in a semi circle.
OOC: we weren't it was in reference to an RP in the courtyard involving gravity. Literally looked towards her classmate <3
Airey nodded his head towards Miss Black at her response. "Not officially, but a good title to help you remember what did occur during the inflationary epoch."
"Inflation, you got it," he said, giving the girl a thumbs up.
Silence. Nothing out of the ordinary from this Slytherin. Airey simply walked right past him and on to the next student.
And kept on walking past the next student, giving Miss Carrington a nod as he did.
"You are on the right track," he nodded while giving her a thumbs up. "It WAS a period of exponential expansion, by a factor of at least 10 to the 26
power in linear dimensions to be precise."
Stellar. Airey was looking forward to seeing that masterpiece at the end of the lesson.
Airey chucked and rocked back on his heels at Miss Greenwell's question. "That is something interesting to think about now, isn't it. That story actually begins with Sir Fred Hoyle who thought of the universe as bursting into existence similar to how you see the word POW and BANG and KABLAM written in vintage muggle comic books. He referred to this as 'cartoon physics' and the term Big Bang was meant to mock the theory...but it evidently stuck. However, Georges Lemaître called it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom" originally, but obviously that name never stuck." In fact, in an interview with Hoyle he said about Lemaître's theory jokingly, "that other theory, the one that made the Universe start with a Big Bang". Suppose the joke is on him now, isn't it?"
Oooooooh wasn't astronomy a hoot? He certainly thought it was and the way he was laughing loudly, with the occasional snort here and there, illustrated as much.
Airey couldn't help himself and he did wink at Miss Fischer. "You are correct, Miss Fischer." And just as Miss Starr had mentioned earlier. "Very good."
Two for you, Miss Star. And no for Alice Fischer.
....
Just kidding. None for either of you.
Good. Now that it seemed as though Miss Cambridge understood where he was coming from then that was settled. He was still going to keep an eye out for any fishy business regarding Tiberius as he peacefully swam around in his tank while he listened to the lecture.
Airey gave the Slytherin a nod in return. Yep. Spot on.
Yes, thank you Mr. Branxton for reminding him why having children was terrifying. Anything that had the word terrible in it surely was not worth it, right? It didn't take a Ravenclaw to figure that much out.
"Whatever helps you remember the process, Mr. Branxton," he nodded as he squirmed his way back to the center of the semi circle to continue the lecture.
"Alright, in our timeline of the universe's formation we have reached a period of exponential expansion and as it is expanding it is also cooling. During this time, light chemical elements were created. These were created within the first three minutes of the universe's formation. Despite these elements being present, it was too hot for light to shine and it would take about 380,000 years before matter cooled enough for electrons to combine with nuclei to form neutral atoms. We are skipping over several stages of the universe's evolution here, but this phase of neutral atoms forming is called recombination and is a term I would like you to remember. As these electrons were absorbed, the universe to become transparent and light was finally unleashed. This light is still detectable today."
Which was pretty neat, right? That even now we were still able to catch a glimpse of some of the first light in the universe.
"However, after the era of recombination came something I like to call the Cosmic Dark Ages, which is said to have lasted between 150 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang." He paused for a moment and wished he had some water with him. Awful lot to talk about and his throat suffering. "You may use your textbooks for this next question if you wish, but who can tell me in your own words, what the HUDF.YD3 is and why is it significant? Try to keep your response as concise as possible. Stick to the big picture if you can."
OOC: keep doing what you are doing guys because you all are awesome <3
Class will resume sometime my tomorrow. Giving a precise time frame is obviously not working out for me so well, but expect at least 24 hours before class moves on <3
Thank goodness they could use the textbook for this. Because Caelen had no idea what the thing was. Though it sounded somewhat like a robot. And Robots were cool.
Getting her astronomy textbook out of her bag, the redhead looked around for any indication of the HU thing. She wasn't entirely sure on the name either. So thank goodness for textbooks.
She tried to read through what she had found, though it was tough to decipher. From what she saw; it was some sort of galaxy thing? Like maybe this galaxy -if she was reading it correctly-. And because she had no idea, she decided to say what she was thinking. After all, waging a guess couldn't hurt, right?
"It's a galaxy, correct? If I read it right, our galaxy. And it's significance is that it's OUR galaxy, like it's our version of outer space." That's what galaxies were right? Or did she have the whole concept of those wrong? She felt like she did, but the explanation sounded good. She would keep it. Even if it was totally wrong. She might not be on the right page. She thought she wasn't. Also: question about galaxies. Like how did they work?
"Sir, how exactly do galaxies work? Are they like -excuse the analogy- little bowls with space in them? And then for that matter, the space is like a little bowl with us in it, riiight? So you could technically keep going if there's galaxies in galaxies -are there such things, sir- can it be like a never ending series of bowls within bowls that contain literally all of life?" WOAH. Firstie getting deep. She didn't mean to ask such a long question and waste class time, but it was actually quite interesting. At least to her.
And were galaxies like people's version of outer space? That was part of Star Wars wasn't it? That they were in a totally different galaxy in which aliens existed and there was a council and the princess had hair buns for some reason?
__________________
People are drawn to you because of your peaceful and nurturing persona. While
quite softspoken, you put the needs of others above your own needs and show
a real empathy for all living things. Your warm heart could keep a blizzard away.
NARGLES! |Tree Hugger | Wears a Penguin Suit & Tie | Snape on a Stick
Ian saw the thumbs up that seemed to be directed at him and he saw the professor's mouth moving, but he felt like he was trying to listen through cotton balls. He was hearing muffled sounds, and he could hear those closest to him, but much of the rest of the sounds were like a low buzzing noise. He turned his head to the side and tapped at his ear and that seemed to do the trick. He smiled back at the professor and could hear that the other students were speaking about a galaxy very far away. He did struggle with some of the words and raised his hand and asked the question, What is an epoch? He was hoping it wasn't some strange form of acne.
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Ella did feel sort of bad for Kevin now, she really did. But honestly, disrespecting the Professor and the rules of his classroom was no way to handle being uncomfortable about your hair situation. Ella got the hair stuff, she did, but there were better ways to express that. At least he'd taken his feet off the table. Plus Airey didn't seem to cross with her for speaking up so that was good.
O___O
Alopecia Areata WHAT NOW?
Airey was kidding, right? Ella green eyes widened and her hand stroked her blonde locks gently, recalling just how much hair had been on her hair brush when she'd brushed it earlier. How..did he know? She would need to panic about this later. Was Alec freaked too? She knew he understood about hair emergencies and so she glanced over at him and he was..
...blushing? And apparently Airey had noticed too which was amusing, at least for Ella. The blonde raised her eyebrows slightly at Alec's comment on being hot and then gave him a curious smile. She'd be asking about that later. He knew this, yeah?
But anyway, moving on.
HUDF.YD3?
"Sounds like a confusing algebra problem or some sort of name for a robot, Professor. Y'know, R2D2 and all that."
But it wasn't, apparently. Because she was now trailing her fingers along her text book in search of the answer and voila!
"But like everyone has said, it's this really, really, really distant galaxy and since it's so old, it helps Astronomers learn stuff about how things used to be when the universe first started."
Well... things were starting to get pretty interesting in this class. HUDF.YD3? Now the man was just tossing out random letters and numbers.
O_____o.
But he did say it was in their textbook, which meant it was a real thing, right? She quickly began flipping through the pages in search of what exactly this sort of thing was. Aha! Finally she'd found it. She raised her hand, smiling confidently up at the man. "Professor, it says here that the HUDF.YD3 is a galaxy in the constellation Fornax that is approximately 30 BILLION light years away from our own galaxy. I feel like that is a significance in itself."
Wonderful. Simply wonderful.
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Glad that the Professor had liked Terry's answer to the question, even if he had one minor incy wincy detail wrong, it was still a pretty intelligent response, even if he did think so himself. The Slytherin smiled and listened intently to what was being explained next.
Then the lesson really started to progress. The Snake started to feel a little sorry for the younger years, all these weird and complicated words being thrown about casually in conversation. He did wonder how they could keep up. The sixth year opened up his textbook when Flamsteed had suggested they use it to answer and scanned the pages, reading along using his finger.
He was going to raise his hand but many had already beaten him to it. Deciding that perhaps it would be best to just write notes instead of repeating word for word another students answer, the sixteen year old took out his quill and scribbled along his parchments anything that had sounded particularly interesting or relevant, waiting for the full explanation from the Professor before he wrote anything in detail.
Baguette | there is no D in my name | TRAITORclaw | Queenie of Narnia
Text Cut: Flamsteed
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie
Airey chucked and rocked back on his heels at Miss Greenwell's question. "That is something interesting to think about now, isn't it. That story actually begins with Sir Fred Hoyle who thought of the universe as bursting into existence similar to how you see the word POW and BANG and KABLAM written in vintage muggle comic books. He referred to this as 'cartoon physics' and the term Big Bang was meant to mock the theory...but it evidently stuck. However, Georges Lemaître called it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom" originally, but obviously that name never stuck." In fact, in an interview with Hoyle he said about Lemaître's theory jokingly, "that other theory, the one that made the Universe start with a Big Bang". Suppose the joke is on him now, isn't it?"
Oooooooh wasn't astronomy a hoot? He certainly thought it was and the way he was laughing loudly, with the occasional snort here and there, illustrated as much.
"Alright, in our timeline of the universe's formation we have reached a period of exponential expansion and as it is expanding it is also cooling. During this time, light chemical elements were created. These were created within the first three minutes of the universe's formation. Despite these elements being present, it was too hot for light to shine and it would take about 380,000 years before matter cooled enough for electrons to combine with nuclei to form neutral atoms. We are skipping over several stages of the universe's evolution here, but this phase of neutral atoms forming is called recombination and is a term I would like you to remember. As these electrons were absorbed, the universe to become transparent and light was finally unleashed. This light is still detectable today."
Which was pretty neat, right? That even now we were still able to catch a glimpse of some of the first light in the universe.
"However, after the era of recombination came something I like to call the Cosmic Dark Ages, which is said to have lasted between 150 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang." He paused for a moment and wished he had some water with him. Awful lot to talk about and his throat suffering. "You may use your textbooks for this next question if you wish, but who can tell me in your own words, what the HUDF.YD3 is and why is it significant? Try to keep your response as concise as possible. Stick to the big picture if you can."
OOC: keep doing what you are doing guys because you all are awesome <3
Class will resume sometime my tomorrow. Giving a precise time frame is obviously not working out for me so well, but expect at least 24 hours before class moves on <3
Moving on with the lesson, Penelope listened as Flamsteed answered her question. So that was why...that sorta made sense. Ish. Why people didn't just change the name seemed weird, but to each his own and stuff. Same with how he somehow thought this was funny, even though she didn't see the humor in it. Probably an astronomer thing. Or just a Flamsteed thing. Either way.
Again moving on and there was more talking and explaining and...random letters. Penelope had to think about it all for a moment, and then loads of other students were already explaining the answers, so she decided to just keep quiet on this one. She didn't really have anything original to add right now.
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Gwen started to flip through her book, she had heard that string of letters somewhere before. She raised her hand again. Not that she wanted to be the annoying kid answering all of the questions but House Points. She'd heard that Ravenclaw hadn't won that competition in some years. "Isn't it something to do with the Hubble Space Telescope?" she asked. What exactly it was, she didn't know. Maybe it was a special piece of machinery for the Hubble? They were in Astronomy, it was a logical answer.
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DID HE JUST CALL HIM BARTHOLOMEW????????
Didn't the man know he hated that name. Bart looked at him and just stared he really wanted to say something, but Kevin's outburst distracted him and he forgot all about the Bartholomew part. Tapping the table yet again he tried to listen, but then he noticed grey hairs in others and some people looking funny where they falling asleep or just squinting their eyes to make those marks?
Oh wait what was he going on about, Bart looked around and saw people taking notes. Hopefully Brynny was taking good notes because he didn't even have parchment out. Maybe he should see about getting one of those self writing quills then he would get notes from classes.
HUDF.YD3 what? and you can use your text books. Pffft like he was going to do that. Bart open a book. He sat and listened to everyone else said and nodded in agreement. That was enough wasn't it? "This is so confusing." He said not really to anyone just speaking to his desk. Light years? Terms that were way to long, and opening books. So much for Professor Flamedude being cool.. boring lecture was going towards the lame side. Sigh
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Okay, so... everyone knew about this Hud-fa-dyd thingy, while Mo was still flipping through his book looking for the answer. His shoulder was hurting. Like... just all of a sudden. And the book was annoying him with it's stupid pages and how the words were all cross-wise and UGH.
He had to put on his glasses in class, which Mo did NOT like to do.
Might as well swing at this question from another direction. "The Hubble Space Telescope is this amazingly high powered telescope that sits low in Earth's orbit and takes deep space photographs." He had to pause to think about that. Maybe he wanted to learn to take deep space photographs. Question: did he have to be in low orbit?
"Anyway, the Hubble telescope took pictures of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field over 80 years ago... although it's funny because it was looking back at those galaxies and things as they looked 13 billion years ago. Which, you know... THAT is some gray haired galaxies." Also, speaking of gray hair, why hadn't these kids heard of HAIR DYE? It did Mo's hair good.
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What the what?? What was Flamsteed talking about? OH... they could use their books to answer. Pulling her textbook out, Lily started flipping through the index, looking for anything that seemed to relate to the HFD whatever it was. Every now and again, she would glance up, hearing a classmate say something in relation to the subject.
Galaxy, hubble space telescope, part of a constellation, R2D2... wait... R2D2?? Lily gave a confused look to Professor Flamsteed after hearing someone mention R2D2. Did that really have anything to do with the whatchamacallit? Like a stereotypical ravenclaw, Lily looked back in her textbook instead of offering an answer. She needed to know what the thing was before she offered any thoughts on it.
A lot of information. About everything. Bev blinked a few times, trying to understand the words coming out Professor Airey's mouth, then quickly jotting down what she did get. It was just SO much data, her mind was buzzing!
Writing down about the Big Bang and other suggestions her classmates made, she chose to sit out the second question. No need to embarrass herself by blurting out the wrong answers. This wasn't like potions where ingredients and measurements just clicked in her head.
Either way, she wrote what she figured were the important things, especially 'recombination' since Professor Airey said to remember it. She even underlined it and all. Then about light, Cosmic Dark Ages, which apparently lasted years and YEARS after the Big Bang.
Once again, she sat out the third question, but she nodded in Airey's direction. Yes, she was looking things up on her textbook 'cause she had no idea, but she was willing to learn. So, while her classmates volunteered their answers, she skimmed through the pages looking for this HUDF.YD3.
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Marigold grinned at Airey and paused her note taking. This class was getting really interesting. She considered the question for a moment, then raised her hand confidently.
"Second farthest thing, though I do believe it is a galaxy," she said, eyes bright with interest. Maybe she would be an astronomer one day!
"Alright, in our timeline of the universe's formation we have reached a period of exponential expansion and as it is expanding it is also cooling. During this time, light chemical elements were created. These were created within the first three minutes of the universe's formation. Despite these elements being present, it was too hot for light to shine and it would take about 380,000 years before matter cooled enough for electrons to combine with nuclei to form neutral atoms. We are skipping over several stages of the universe's evolution here, but this phase of neutral atoms forming is called recombination and is a term I would like you to remember. As these electrons were absorbed, the universe to become transparent and light was finally unleashed. This light is still detectable today."
Which was pretty neat, right? That even now we were still able to catch a glimpse of some of the first light in the universe.
"However, after the era of recombination came something I like to call the Cosmic Dark Ages, which is said to have lasted between 150 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang." He paused for a moment and wished he had some water with him. Awful lot to talk about and his throat suffering. "You may use your textbooks for this next question if you wish, but who can tell me in your own words, what the HUDF.YD3 is and why is it significant? Try to keep your response as concise as possible. Stick to the big picture if you can."
WAIT A MINUTE.
Lucas totally had heard of the Hubble Space Telescope before! So uh.. here came some words. "It's actually called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field so, that's why, you know, with the letters in the acronym, but anyway, it's a galaxy that's like really, really far away I think like with a light travel time of like almost 14 billion years but that isn't EVEN the coolest part. When they found it in like 2010, basically they thought it was the second furthest thing away from us but it ISN'T! They found it was located in the constellation of Fornax which is such a cool name. And the reason this place is interesting is because it's like in this phase called.. reonionisation? Huh. That didn't sound right. "But it's like younger than our one and that's cool because we're really interested in what how our universe was built."
But also because, "the Europeans are building a telescope with a really silly name, like it's not creative at all, so they can look further back in space, like older galaxies that are dimmer? Professor, why are they dimmer?"
Still. Astronomy was COOL and Lucas had clearly done some reading.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Felixir
"It's a galaxy, I think? Like super sUPER far away. Like billions and billions of light-years away. I'm guessing it's like super old and one of the first things around. Or the first something. I mean it's soooooo far away but the fact that we can still see it must mean it's a super old thing to be able to see."
Did that make sense? Probably not. His brain was all fuzzy.
............... Oh no. Was there an infestation of wrackspurts in this classroom? So inconvenient.
"It is INDEED, Mr. Tempus," Airey nodded towards the boy as he put a bit too much bounce in his step that he nearly lost his balance. "A galaxy with the a present proper distance of around 30 billion light-years and serves as our gateway into the universe's past."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Govoni
"It's supposedly the object that marks the outermost edge of our galaxy?" Wait...Was she reading that wrong? "...Oh, it was thought to be the first galaxy?...and will teach us more about deeper, outer space." Yep, and that terrifying Hufflepuff chaser-person was getting a look. Ves didn't know why she was so annoyed with him.....Nor why she was so super annoyed with everyone, lately. "Yes, it's meant to teach us many important things about deep space."
Final answer. FLOP.
YES YES YES GOOOOOOOOOD!
Airey's mood continued to go up up up as the Ravenclaw elaborated on her answer. Even if they were just reading and rewording things from their textbooks, it was all vital information for them to know. "Very good, Miss Bayliss. As astronomer Brant Robertson put it, this particular 'galaxy happens to reside at a very special time in cosmic history when the properties of gas in the universe were changing rapidly, and therefore this galaxy and others like it may teach us a lot about the early history of the universe.' It is extremely vital in our understanding of where we came from."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saiai
Turning her mind to the present question Ana raised her hand once more. "HUDF.YD3 is a galaxy in the constellation Fornax, which Muggles identify as Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. When it was first discovered it was one of the second furthest objects that could be identified and is around 30 billion lightyears away from our own galaxy. The reason that HUDF.YD3 is so significant though is because it is apparently in the reionization epoch. So basically it's the first galaxy we've been able to observe where a star is actually only just forming. Through observing HUDF.YD3 we can actually learn a lot about the early stages of our Universe," Ana said, without taking up Professor Airey's permission of looking up the answer. Astronomy was interesting and she tried to pack as much knowledge into her brain as possible. She just hoped that this answer, unlike her last, was correct. Even though she thought Flamsteed was a strange one she did want to impress him just a little bit. But then, she wanted to impress most of the teachers so that was nothing new, especially those who taught subjects she was actually interested in.
He saw the look, and was forever sorry about the name mishap. No promise it wouldn't happen again since it was somehow implanted in his mind that her last name was not what she said it was. He ALSO noticed how she had not glanced down at her textbook. Oh oh oooooooooooh interesting.
"STELLAR! Absolutely stellar!" he said as he gave her two thumbs up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireboltAvis88
"Professor, HUDF.YD3 is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field identifier for a galaxy which was calculated to be the second most distant from the earth. During the period where the universe's first stars were just massive, ionizing hydrogen in the surrounding environment, HUDF.YD3 is thought to be the first galaxy identified during that period. Um...that period was called the reionization epoch," Sander paused as he looked back down at his notes.
Then he looked back up,"Scientists believe that HUDF.YD3 existed at a special moment in time in cosmic history when the properties of gas in the universe were rapidly changing, and therefore by studying more about this galaxy, we can could learn a lot about the early history of the universe." Sander concluded his answer.
And more thumbs up to you, good Hufflepuff, although some parts were a bit too textbook sounding for his liking. He had picked out all the good bits of information. "Very good, Mr. Strand. Very good indeed."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mell
"Er...what she said and to add to that it was discovered by three teams in September 2009 using a really cool telescope that could see far, far away. They identified it as a distant galaxy because there were no measurable light at visible wavelengths." He didn't understand the rest of it.
"A really REALLY cool telescope," Airey nodded. "While the telescope in the Observatory is no where near as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, you can still see some galaxies we can see using it...such as the Andromeda galaxy. You can also see it with the naked eye if it is dark enough. Unfortunately, you cannot see this particular one."
Quote:
Originally Posted by lemon
"The era of reionization was a period when this hydrogen fog stuff, which absorbed and was cleared by UV light from young galaxies, still existed. HUDF.YD3 is the first confirmed galaxy whose light is clearing that fog."
The other students' answers were... still more relevant. And well thought out. And just better as a whole. But hers was different.
Take THAT, Constantinople.
Airey was seriously concerned about Miss Fischer and the faces she was making. Some of them were worse than the ones she had made while eating some of his baked creations.
But then she spoke and his face readjusted to his typically pleased professor look. "Very simply put, Miss Fisher. Stellar use of laymen's terms to help your classmates understand some very complicated concepts. What we are able to see thanks to this galaxy is the second of two major phase transitions of gas in the universe."
Laymen's terms. He really liked those words today for some reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tegz
... was Alice okay? She didn't look good. West shot a concerned look over at her, then looked back at the professor and swallowed a yawn. He'd read about this supposed galaxy, and it had like a real high redshift yeah? Unless they measured it wrong, which was possible and would even mean it might not be a galaxy at all. Funny. West didn't speak up yet again, though he was paying attention in between shooting glances at Alice.
Maybe he was just taking a page out of Ascanius's book with the silence.
SEE! That just there! The glance towards Miss Fischer! Airey was no good with human interactions and figuring out how to fix relationships - still working on that whole relationship thing himself - but there was DEFINITELY something going on here. The gossip rag had been right!
Should he call them both into his office or something?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squishy
Why. Was. This. Lesson. So. Hard.
Lux scratched her head absentmindedly as she listened to the Professor speak, and he might as well have been speaking in another language all the good it did her. Nothing was sinking in at all. When they were told they could use their textbook for the next question, she eagerly opened it and flipped to the right page, hoping it would help...
But it didn't. She was as lost as ever.
Why couldn't she be as smart as her friends? They always knew the answers to things. Meh.
He gave Miss Carrington an encouraging smile and nod as he moved passed her. Today was a bit more complicated than he had wanted for a first time lesson, but understanding some of the building blocks to the universe, star formation, and eventually planet formation would be key in upcoming lessons. There would be time to let it all sink in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PotterHeadforLife
But anyway, Professor Flamsteed said they could check their textbook, right? So Astrid did that and flipped as fast as she could to find about what this is. Once she found the page, she immediately raised her hand. "It's other name is UDFy...38135539..." Merlin, what a long name. Why would anyone name it that way? "It was also thought to be the first ever galaxy to be observed in the reionization epoch." YES THAT. She wiggled her eyebrows. Interesting. This stuff was interesting.
Airey chuckled. Astronomers and scientists certainly had their own way of naming things. Made perfect sense if you were in the know, but otherwise looked like someone had just smashed their fingers on one of those muggle keyboards to come up with. "Very good, Miss Asteroid."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rosa Chispa Princessa
She then heard the next question and she was puzzled. Whats HYDF.YD3, better look this up. When she did she grinned. She raised her hand and answered giddily "Wow, that is telescope that can basically view a good portion of space. We have even managed to take a glimpse into a galaxy next to ours that is really far away.".
This one needed to slow down and process her reading first. At least that is what he got from her answer. "Read that page a little more carefully, Miss Paulidine. The name of the telescope you are talking about is not HUDF.YD3."
Quote:
Originally Posted by FearlessLeader19
Wasting no time, Adi flipped his text book over and began searching for the weird term HUDF.YD3. He read carefully before raising his hand. ''HUDF stands for Hubble Ultra Deep er...'' A moment of silence as he scrambled to find the meaning of the F again in his text. "Field! Hubble Ultra Deep Field. When it was first discovered, it was thought to be the second furthest object from our galaxy. It is also thought it was the first galaxy to have been seen during the re-ionization epoch.'' Another pause as he put the next question into an easily understandable sentence. "So, why is it so important or signification? It's because it has been around for billions of years, we can use it to study the early stages of the universe.'' There! Adi hoped Professor Airey wasn't annoyed with all of his pauses but his brain needed a moment to wrap itself around all these sciencey terms.
"Excellent, Mr. Rehman," he replied with a nod towards the second year. "Do you know what the YD3 means in that name?" Since he had explained what the HUDF meant, only fair to see if he could dig a little deeper in the text and find that out too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Princesspower
What was HUDF.YD3? Sarah began to page through her textbook, until she found it.. She read and read, taking it all in. Then it dawned on her what the big bang had to do with astronomy.. all these billions years meant something as to the distance from earth.... She raised her hand and waited her turn to be called on. By then, the others had already said what she wanted.. instead of not answering at all Sarah said, "The others said basically what I wanted to say, however, one thing caught my eye and it will make it easier to remember some facts in the future. I think 'ten' plays part of this. It was given its name on the tenth month of the tenth year of this century and... its diamater is one tenth of our galaxy! Oh, and professor, I have a question. You see the light we see from this galaxy, as little as it is, was emitted 13 billion years ago- does that mean that we are not living in the present due to the speed of sound and light. I mean, what you are hearing now, I actually said a fraction of a second ago..."
"Oh, a very interesting observation, Miss Edwards!" With all the 10's that is. Something that he had not noticed himself despite it staring at him right in the face. "That certainly is a stellar way to remember some important facts regarding the galaxy. Take one point for that." As to her other question, well, that was becoming rather philosophical now wasn't it. "That would depend on what you would call living, Miss Edwards. But if you want to get down to the fine details then, from a scientific standpoint, I would have to say no simply because the human brain cannot process things instantaneously. There is always a slight delay and everything you and I perceive as now has already occurred."
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaniDiNardo
Lex flipped open her text, being able to and began skimming the page. You know what? This was a lot of complicated crunched into one page. Left to herself she'd just read from the text so the girl would keep quiet and wonder where Alice got that Ravenclaw answer from. From where she was sitting it didn't even look like she was reading from the book.
Lex sat quietly twiddling her thumbs. Activity please? She was lost in this dscussion.
Airey squirmed his way past the prefect. Squirmy squirm. He would try and figure out how to make up for his grumpy outburst at her later. But she HAD threatened the life of Tiberius. Or so he had convinced himself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grrr..Meow
Bay loved this class so far. The professor was great and he loved Astronomy. Raising his hand to answer again he smiled.
SPOILER!!: if called upon
" Professor... Isnt HUDF.YD3 the most distant identified object in space?"
Bay thought he heard his father talking about this over the summer before he came to school.
"It is!" he nodded towards the Gryffindor. "To be more specific, it is the most distant spectroscopically confirmed object in space."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lissy Longbottom
"Professor, HUDF.YD3 is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which is like a layer of the universe that extends way past ours. It was believed to be the...second furthest thing away from us? I think? Anyways, if we study it, we can probably get some better insight into the creation of the galaxy," he explained.
Yup. That was as detailed as he could get. What happened to STARS and stuff? He wanted to learn more about those, not these things with letters and numbers. What was this, Arithmancy??
"Ah, be careful, Mr. Newell," Airey said in response to the boy's answer. "The HUDF.YD3 is not the name for the entire Hubble Ultra Deep Field, but a universe found within the region of space in the constellation Fornax known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meizzner
So he wanted to know what surfboards had to do with the Big Bang. Nigel was assuming it was not rhetorical because he could come up with a reason. It was not to hard. "I like to view it as a representation of the Big Bang creating the universe, dark matter, stars, and all the other awesome thing"
And all Nigel was doing is creating a surfboard on his parchment. So that was Nigel's tiny ramble on what surfboards had to do with the Big Bang. He did ask Nigel the question. So back to the regular question. Yeah. "It is in a period of star birth and can teach us a lot about the early history of the universe"
Since you know we don't have a tardis that can travel that far back in time to view to beginning of the universe. Which would be so awesome.
While Airey was not too sure he was buying the whole surfboard Big Bang relationship, he decided to not ask any further questions. Ravenclaws just thought differently, you know? As long as it made sense to the prefect.
"Perhaps you ought to stop drawing surfboards and take a closer look at your textbook," he whispered to the boy. Period of star birth? Not exactly the definition of a universe, Mr. Barrington.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady of Light
HUDF.YD3.
Heck, yeeees. Delilah was definitely refering to her textbook because she literally had no idea what it was. She read for a bit, furrowing her brows in concentration. Oh, man. This stuff was quite complicated but interesting. Yes, definitely interesting.
The Hufflepuff finally raised her hand. "Um.. professor.. from what I understand it is a galaxy that is close to the earth? And um.. also, it's supposedly really old and closer to the big bang... and it'll help us in understanding the universe better?"
... She was trying, at least. Heh.
He shook his head. "Not close to earth, it is very VERY far away, but the rest of your answer is spot on."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anna Banana
Sophie flipped through her textbook in search of the answer. Sounded just like a jumble of letters and numbers to her. She raised her hand. "It says here that it's the Hubble Ultra Deep Field," she said. Okay, so...what was it? "It's a...galaxy?" Yeah. She was terrible at this. "Err, I have no idea why it's so significant, but that," she said, then pointed to Adi (FearlessLeader19), "sounds good."
Airey was amused by this one and gave her an encouraging smile. "While there is some debate as to whether or not it is a galaxy or a protogalaxy, let's just keep things simple and call it a galaxy."
Or, good going Airey. Confuse the students more than some of them already were.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UnicornDragonPatronus
Awesome, one right-ish answer. She gave the Professor a small smile and went back to scribbling notes, wanting to make sure that the answer was clear for later referencing... most likely late one night right before the exam. But, at last she had it written down.
At the next question, her mind pulled a blank. She began to leaf through the text book, but she figured it would be better just to let the others take this one. However, she still made an attempt on her parchment as to what the abbreviation could stand for...
Huge universe dazes finders. Young daring 3?
How unicorns dye fur. Yellow dye 3?
Hobos use dangerous fuel. You don't 3...
These were just getting more and more ridiculous. Tessa stopped trying and just waited. Anything would make more sense than those did.
As Airey passed by the Gryffindor's desk, he couldn't stop himself from taking a peek down at her notes. "I personally like your second option," he whispered. He had ridden on a unicorn once, did she know that? Once and only once because his suit had been a magnet for unicorn hair.
"Try to keep things class related though, yes?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liisa
Blinking at the Professor's next question, Ava quickly scratched the unusual series of letters and numbers onto her parchment and then laid down her quill to flex her tired fingers. 'HUDF.YD3'? The term meant nothing at all to the first year. It was clearly an acronym for something but what? Pretty much the only thing she COULD be certain of was the fact that she had never heard of it before.
Listening to her classmates' answers, she took up her quill again to jot some notes down.
*HUDF.YD3 is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
*a galaxy in the constellation Fornax
*30 billion lightyears away from our own galaxy
... and on and on she wrote, trying to keep up with everything being said.
He was pleased to see that this Gryffindor wasn't writing about unicorns or drawing surfboards on her parchment. So she got a smile before he moved on to the next raised hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hermionesclone
Flamsteed had noticed. BLINK. This... was embarrassing. Could he read minds? Please say no. "No no, I'm fine sire," ... Sire?! No. Too late. Move on. "Erm... just feeling a bit... hot. Thanks for the concern." He gave the man a nod and a smile before covering his cheeks with his hands. Embarrassing.
...
Lots of people had said their own smart answers so... he was going to offer his. Whether it was smart or not was something that the Head Boy was going to leave up to Astro Man Flamsteed to decide. After a while, he raised his hand in the air. "It's a small patch of... space? Yeah, space that's found in the constellation of Fornax, which is... in the Southern Hemisphere?" Quick check at the book. Nod. "Yeah. I guess the HUDF image was taken there because... because there's a low density of bright stars relatively nearby so... so it's easier to see things that are dimmer and further away."
Concise? ... Probably not.
Sire? STARE. SIRE?
Was Mr. Summers calling him the King of the Astronomy Tower? Just because the boy was clearly feeling flushed for whatever reason was not an excuse. "2 points, Mr. Summers. For calling me sire." It was weird and the man was feeling agitated by it for whatever reason and just no.
"What you just described is the region of space in which the HUDF.YD3 was found, Mr. Summers. But all very good facts."
Quote:
Originally Posted by carpediem
"It's a galaxy, correct? If I read it right, our galaxy. And it's significance is that it's OUR galaxy, like it's our version of outer space." That's what galaxies were right? Or did she have the whole concept of those wrong? She felt like she did, but the explanation sounded good. She would keep it. Even if it was totally wrong. She might not be on the right page. She thought she wasn't. Also: question about galaxies. Like how did they work?
"Sir, how exactly do galaxies work? Are they like -excuse the analogy- little bowls with space in them? And then for that matter, the space is like a little bowl with us in it, riiight? So you could technically keep going if there's galaxies in galaxies -are there such things, sir- can it be like a never ending series of bowls within bowls that contain literally all of life?" WOAH. Firstie getting deep. She didn't mean to ask such a long question and waste class time, but it was actually quite interesting. At least to her.
"OUR galaxy is the Milky Way Galaxy," he corrected the Ravenclaw. So, no, not our galaxy. "You will see in just a moment how galaxies work." Because that is where this discussion was heading and where the activity would begin. "But thinking about them as a bowl with space in them is a easy way to think about things if you think of the bowl as being a metaphor for gravity and it holding stars, mostly hydrogen gas, dust and dark matter within it."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Penguin
Ian saw the thumbs up that seemed to be directed at him and he saw the professor's mouth moving, but he felt like he was trying to listen through cotton balls. He was hearing muffled sounds, and he could hear those closest to him, but much of the rest of the sounds were like a low buzzing noise. He turned his head to the side and tapped at his ear and that seemed to do the trick. He smiled back at the professor and could hear that the other students were speaking about a galaxy very far away. He did struggle with some of the words and raised his hand and asked the question, What is an epoch? He was hoping it wasn't some strange form of acne.
"A very fair question, although probably not nearly as fascinating as you would hope. An epoch is simply a particular period of time in history. In Astronomy, however, it is a is a specific moment or period in time for which celestial coordinates or orbital elements are specified, hence why certain points in the universe's development use the word epoch as opposed to other time related terminology."
Quote:
Originally Posted by TakemetotheBurrow
"Sounds like a confusing algebra problem or some sort of name for a robot, Professor. Y'know, R2D2 and all that."
But it wasn't, apparently. Because she was now trailing her fingers along her text book in search of the answer and voila!
"But like everyone has said, it's this really, really, really distant galaxy and since it's so old, it helps Astronomers learn stuff about how things used to be when the universe first started."
Technically, R2D2 wasn't JUST a robot, it was an astromech droid. But he wasn't about to correct the Head Girl on that for now. Proper names were important when it came to such matters and he found it rather rude to call R2D2 something as generic as robot.
So, just LOOKS for you, Miss Ella. LOOKS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HazelStone101
But he did say it was in their textbook, which meant it was a real thing, right? She quickly began flipping through the pages in search of what exactly this sort of thing was. Aha! Finally she'd found it. She raised her hand, smiling confidently up at the man. "Professor, it says here that the HUDF.YD3 is a galaxy in the constellation Fornax that is approximately 30 BILLION light years away from our own galaxy. I feel like that is a significance in itself."
Wonderful. Simply wonderful.
Still flashing LOOKS at the Head Girl, he turned his gaze on the Ravenclaw as she spoke. "Yes, I suppose it is." Sorry kid, he was grumpy over his favorite droid being insulted.
Even if any sane person would agree that robots and droids were the same.
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Originally Posted by Lottiepot
He was going to raise his hand but many had already beaten him to it. Deciding that perhaps it would be best to just write notes instead of repeating word for word another students answer, the sixteen year old took out his quill and scribbled along his parchments anything that had sounded particularly interesting or relevant, waiting for the full explanation from the Professor before he wrote anything in detail.
He simply gave the Slytherin boy a nod as he passed. Poor R2D2 being demoted. Grumble grumble.
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Originally Posted by AlwaysSnapesGirl
Again moving on and there was more talking and explaining and...random letters. Penelope had to think about it all for a moment, and then loads of other students were already explaining the answers, so she decided to just keep quiet on this one. She didn't really have anything original to add right now.
Faint smile for you, Miss Greenwell. Thank you for listening and being attentive. Moving along now....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Presley Black
Gwen started to flip through her book, she had heard that string of letters somewhere before. She raised her hand again. Not that she wanted to be the annoying kid answering all of the questions but House Points. She'd heard that Ravenclaw hadn't won that competition in some years. "Isn't it something to do with the Hubble Space Telescope?" she asked. What exactly it was, she didn't know. Maybe it was a special piece of machinery for the Hubble? They were in Astronomy, it was a logical answer.
"It certainly does," he nodded. "It is all thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope that the HUDF.YD3 was discovered in the first place."
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Originally Posted by Bazinga
HUDF.YD3 what? and you can use your text books. Pffft like he was going to do that. Bart open a book. He sat and listened to everyone else said and nodded in agreement. That was enough wasn't it? "This is so confusing." He said not really to anyone just speaking to his desk. Light years? Terms that were way to long, and opening books. So much for Professor Flamedude being cool.. boring lecture was going towards the lame side. Sigh
Oh dear, Mr. Bartholomew was talking to his desk. Airey tried not to pass judgement. He, after all, had a pet rock who he told all his secrets to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cassirin
Might as well swing at this question from another direction. "The Hubble Space Telescope is this amazingly high powered telescope that sits low in Earth's orbit and takes deep space photographs." He had to pause to think about that. Maybe he wanted to learn to take deep space photographs. Question: did he have to be in low orbit?
"Anyway, the Hubble telescope took pictures of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field over 80 years ago... although it's funny because it was looking back at those galaxies and things as they looked 13 billion years ago. Which, you know... THAT is some gray haired galaxies." Also, speaking of gray hair, why hadn't these kids heard of HAIR DYE? It did Mo's hair good.
Airey nodded at Mr. Branxton. He had seemed interested in...sun printing was it? He recalled camera talk in a lesson...last term? He was having a hard time recalling the details at this moment, but it didn't surprise him that the young captain was interested in the telescope and it's picture taking abilities.
Even if his question had not been to tell him about the telescope. He would let that slide because the astronomer was chuckling more than he should at the gray hair galaxies comment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by magikewe
Galaxy, hubble space telescope, part of a constellation, R2D2... wait... R2D2?? Lily gave a confused look to Professor Flamsteed after hearing someone mention R2D2. Did that really have anything to do with the whatchamacallit? Like a stereotypical ravenclaw, Lily looked back in her textbook instead of offering an answer. She needed to know what the thing was before she offered any thoughts on it.
He did not interrupt Miss Potter as she read through the textbook. Would cause her to loose her place and he hated it when people interrupted him while he was reading.
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Originally Posted by Bubbles
Once again, she sat out the third question, but she nodded in Airey's direction. Yes, she was looking things up on her textbook 'cause she had no idea, but she was willing to learn. So, while her classmates volunteered their answers, she skimmed through the pages looking for this HUDF.YD3.
Challenging lesson was challenging.
Adorably Foxy, but not in THAT way, Slytherin was listening and being attentive. He gave her a small smile before moving his gaze around the classroom for any other hands that may be raised.
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Originally Posted by ScarletCharm104
Marigold grinned at Airey and paused her note taking. This class was getting really interesting. She considered the question for a moment, then raised her hand confidently.
"Second farthest thing, though I do believe it is a galaxy," she said, eyes bright with interest. Maybe she would be an astronomer one day!
He nodded as Miss McAlistor gave her answer. Although there was a list in circulation that ranked it much lower than second, especially with a few candidates in the mix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lexers
WAIT A MINUTE.
Lucas totally had heard of the Hubble Space Telescope before! So uh.. here came some words. "It's actually called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field so, that's why, you know, with the letters in the acronym, but anyway, it's a galaxy that's like really, really far away I think like with a light travel time of like almost 14 billion years but that isn't EVEN the coolest part. When they found it in like 2010, basically they thought it was the second furthest thing away from us but it ISN'T! They found it was located in the constellation of Fornax which is such a cool name. And the reason this place is interesting is because it's like in this phase called.. reonionisation? Huh. That didn't sound right. "But it's like younger than our one and that's cool because we're really interested in what how our universe was built."
But also because, "the Europeans are building a telescope with a really silly name, like it's not creative at all, so they can look further back in space, like older galaxies that are dimmer? Professor, why are they dimmer?"
Still. Astronomy was COOL and Lucas had clearly done some reading.
The excitement from this Gryffindor was infectious and the professor could feel his blood boiling and the bounce returning to the balls of his feet as the boy spoke. He couldn't get a word in edgewise until he finally stopped to breath and ask a question.
"A very good question," he grinned at the boy as he reached to pull his wand out of his breast pocket to conjure up a model, but instead managed to drop it on the floor. "Galaxies are systems comprised of millions or billions of stars and these stars each have their own luminosity. For us on earth, the relative magnitude of the star's luminosity are what make things appear bright and not so bright. Some galaxies are close enough that we can see them with the naked eye when we look up at the night sky. Others, however are soooooooooooooooo far away...." he explained as he bent over to pick up his wand when....
*CRACK* *POP*
The professor froze in his hunched over position with his face frozen in a state of complete and utter pain. He hadn't even been able to utter any cry of pain as the shook and just how suddenly it had paralyzed his moments took the breath right out of him. He could hardly speak and moment of any sort was entirely out of the question. Worst of all, at least to him at that specific point in time, was the way that his wand was taunting him there. On the ground. Just out of his hands' reach.
"Someone....Healer..." he managed to gasp between electrifying jolts of pain up and down his spine.
__________________
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Sander was taking down notes. He watched as the Professor reached out for his wand and the next he knew he was bent over, and from the look of his face, in intense pain. Just the words 'Someone...Healer' confirmed something was wrong. Sander immediately got up and rushed to his side.
From the way the man was bent over, it looked like he had popped his back out. Not a great feeling indeed, Sander learned from experience. He looked to see whether anyone had left the classroom to get the Healer. He would have if he knew where her office was.
All he could here was to make sure the Professor didn't do anymore damage to his back. He noticed the Professor looking down at his wand, and quickly picked it up and handed it to the suffering man.
Should he touch him? Should he not? The man did need to sit down even if it was going to hurt like heck at every move he made. Sander looked around for help.
.jpg "- Click to view in gallery.")
Astronomy Lesson 1 :: the Big Bang Theory 
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it was in reference to an RP in the courtyard involving gravity. Literally looked towards her classmate <3
