Astronomy 2:5

Adorah sat at her desk, sipping tea as she waited for footsteps to enter the room. It was a chillier evening, and she was starting to wear down as the semester ended. She finished marking the homework for a fourth year as a student entered, giving them a smile. As the bell rang, she shut down the door and waved her wand to dim the lights slightly. "Good evening! This week, we will be studying asteroids. Now, the word 'asteroid' quite literally means 'star-like' because the first spotted from Earth were faint lights in the night time sky. But they moved through celestial sphere much faster than stars."

Professor Zumwalt moved through the room, waving her wand so some images appeared on the board in the front. "Now, asteroids are rocky objects, sometimes with various make-ups of carbon, metals, and frozen water that orbit stars like our Sun. They are found throughout the solar system. The largest known is Ceres, also known as a dwarf planet, which is 1000km across. But there are others out there, some even smaller than your head," Professor Zumwalt said.

Spoiler: Main Asteroid Belt Image

​

"Now, most are found between Mars and Jupiter, which is referred to as the main asteroid belt." The Professor paused a moment to let the students reflect on her words before continuing. "For those of you acquainted with muggle movies, asteroid belts aren't the same daring struggle to fly through as you might think. Asteroid belts have millions of asteroids, true, but reasonably sized asteroids are typically millions of kilometers apart. If you were to stand on one, you most likely wouldn't see another with your naked eye."

Spoiler: Kirkwood Gap Image

Yellow rings are planets the outermost is Jupiter. White dots are the main asteroid belt.

​

"Another new term to note is the Kirkwood Gap, which is a gap or dip in the distribution of the orbits of main-belt asteroids. They are caused by Jupiter pulling asteroids outward, creating rings of asteroids within the belt, very similar to the rings of Saturn." Professor Zumwalt changed the image on the board to represent this new term. "Grouping asteroids in these rings is one way to classify the asteroids," Professor Zumwalt hardly noticed that she'd gone into another lecture once again. "Well, that's it for tonight," she assured loudly as one student nodded off in the back. "No homework this week, but keep reading up on your notes from semester, as the exams are coming up soon."

--
For full credit, RP the lesson.

 

[Lilith Ilves]

Astronomy was one of those lessons that Lilith could just sort of let her mind rest during. Not that she didn't focus but she let herself get lost in the topic she enjoyed and in the new information. This lesson was no different as she listened to the professor and watched the pictures on the board. She took some notes on the Asteroids and the facts about them. Before the Ravenclaw realized the lesson was nearing its end and she packed up her stuff before quipping a goodnight to her friends and leaving.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Eoghan enjoyed Astronomy because he liked to know how the energies were created, and so learning more about the planets he found useful. He made some notes despite how tired he always was, and wondered whether it was really necessary for all the classes to be at night. Sometimes when they were looking at stars it would make sense, but the rest of the time seemed a little silly to always come up here when they were supposed to be sleeping. Nevertheless Eoghan did his best to make sure he was prepared for the exam ahead, before heading back to his dorms once the lesson was over.

 

[Elijah Edogawa]

Everything sucked, and Eli wanted to be anywhere other than in the classroom, but given he didn’t have a choice in the matter, he stayed well off to the side and worked on his own, scratching out quick notes about asteroids. Floating rocks, how exciting. He shook his head, wishing Jonah was here with him, but he didn’t have Astronomy this semester - pity, he couldn’t wait until next year when they would all be in the same classes. He hoped he would be in some electives with Jonah but it occured to him he didn’t know what electives his brother was taking - he was going to have to check. Soon the class ended and he sighed, before heading back up to the dorms.​

 

[Winnie Calida]

Winnie walked into the astronomy classroom and took her usual spot in the room. She glanced up at the professor as the woman got started and wrote the title of what this lesson was, before then getting down what the professor told them. She had never done a lot of reading on them, but this was more focused and Winnie was making sure she was getting down all of the points the professor was saying about asteroids. She made sure she didn’t miss anything. Eventually the lesson was wrapped up and she headed out of the class.