Seventh Years: Lesson Two

Professor Nakamura was looking forward to teaching some more in-depth lessons about astronomy. NEWT level was where it really got interesting, after all. “Good evening,” Professor Nakamura greeted as everyone took their seats, “tonight we will be going over sunspots and solar flares. Sunspots are temporary dark spots which appear on the surface of the sun. They don’t emit light. They are generally caused by the magnetic field within the sun.” Professor Nakamura paused, making sure everyone was writing down their notes. He smiled at those who were.

“Solar flares, our second topic, are episodes of sudden brightness on the sun. These are usually near the surface and near a sunspot group. It’s important to note that powerful flares are often, but not always, accompanied by a mass coronial ejection.”

“What is a mass coronial ejection? It is a significant release of plasma and the magnetic field from the sun’s corona into the heliosphere. They often occur after solar flares and generally present during a solar prominence eruption. Released into the solar wind, the plasma can be observed with a coronascope*.” Professor Nakamura raised a telescope that looked a little different from the others, with a lens dark enough to appear black. He offered the students an opportunity to look through the telescope, showing how it blocked out the light sources and allowed the user to view the sun safely.

Professor Nakamura spent some time letting the students look through the telescope (though the sun wasn’t viewable at that time of day) to get an idea of how it worked. He then spent the rest of the lesson talking about the difference between our sun and the rest of the stars in the galaxy, as well as taking questions. Some questions were easily answered by Professor Nakamura, others were unknown even to astronomers. Once the questions were over, Professor Nakamura dismissed the class.

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Roleplay the lesson for full marks.
It isn’t necessary to include a question for Professor Nakamura to answer, but feel free to roleplay whether or not your character took part in the question-and-answer session.
*A made up telescope that takes corona imagery for the wizarding world.

 

[Emmanuel Okoye]

Emmanuel had been pretty grateful that the yuleball had gone as well as it had, and was determined to make sure that the valentines day stuff did too. He just wanted to get this right, wanted to do right by Kyon in all of the ways that he just hadn’t been able to yet. The ravenclaw was getting himself together for the day, putting aside some of his thoughts on the valentines stuff and focused more on getting his notes and books together, making sure that he grabbed his homework and everything else and then headed out of the dorm and to class.

Emmanuel walked into the astronomy classroom and took his usual spot in the class. He glanced up at the professor as the man got started. He took out his books and notes and took his quill as the professor told them they’d be going over sunspots and solar flares. He made sure to get down what the professor was saying about them, making sure that he got down what the mass coronial ejection was and everything else the professor said. He took the time to look through the telescope as the professor allowed but the lesson was then wrapped up and he was able to leave the room.

 

[Rory Styx]

Rory wasn’t in the classroom long before Professor Nakamura got things started which wasn’t surprising. Seventh year would be intensive and it was better they got right into it. He took out a sheet of parchment and started taking notes as the professor started his lecture on sunspots and solar flares. Rory had a moment where he thought about the difference from the early years of Astronomy, they’d come along way from discussing planets. He made sure to get all the information down that Professor Nakamura included in his lecture and at the end of the lesson Rory packed up the notes he had made and once they had been dismissed he made his way out of the classroom.

 

[Michael Watson]

Michael was vaguely amused that they were learning about the sun at night, but he supposed they couldn't exactly go staring at the sun anyway. As Professor Nakamura lectured, he took a few notes on sunspots and solar flares, finding them at least somewhat interesting to learn about. It really was worth understanding the sun a bit better even for something like sports journalism, mostly to have a good grasp on the weather. He asked a fairly innocuous question about whether solar flares could potentially be felt on earth, it wasn't necessarily the most serious of questions but he was just kind of curious if solar activity would ever get that strong. After listening to the other questions and answers and taking a few notes, Michael left with the rest of the class when they were dismissed.