Sixth Years: Lesson Three

That day Professor Nakamura had sent out an announcement for the students to meet him not in the usual classroom, but at the highest level of the astronomy tower. Impressively large telescopes were set up for the students, and Professor Nakamura was excited to see them being used. It was always fascinating to watch the young engage with the stars and planets. “Welcome everyone, tonight we will be using the telescopes,” Professor Nakamura informed them with a smile.

“But first, a small lecture. The furthest planet from the Earth is Pluto, at 40AU from the Sun. Then you have the Kelper Belt, and beyond that the Oort Cloud at between 5,000AU and 100,000AU. Quite a distance, and about a quarter of the way to the nearest star. So, once we leave the solar system we change our units to light years, which is the amount of distance light can travel in a year. Also used are parsecs, which are the distance from the Sun using parallax where the angle formed is one arc per second. One arc minute contains sixty arc seconds. So, a parsec is approximately 3.26156 light years. Which leads us to tonight’s activity – measuring distances of our nearest stars!” Professor Nakamura said in an excited tone that inferred he genuinely thought applying mathematics was something to be celebrated. “Take the measurements and use maths to determine their distance from Earth. I want the answers in both parsec and light years. Do feel free to ask for help if you need it,” Professor Nakamura informed them genially.

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Roleplay the lesson and have your student take the measurements of a nearby star for full marks.

Spoiler: Homework

Homework: Extra points for those who “determine” the distance to one of these stars in their post as their student. (Meaning have the parsec and light year distance to one of the stars below in your post. Google is a friend.)

Proxima Centauri
Alpha Centauri A
Alpha Centauri B
Lalande 21185
Sirius (binary star)
Luyten 726-8 (binary star)
Ross 154
Ross 248

 

[Emmanuel Okoye]

Emmanuel was eager for halloween. He knew it would be a good chance to have some fun. He liked going, even if he rarely had a good costume for it. Emmanuel was keen to ensure he was participating in things. He liked the club events and the quidditch games. He liked revision and his classes, but he like just being a part of things, of learning about various things and keeping himself busy with that. Emmanuel was getting himself ready, grabbing the books and notes he needed before heading to class.

Emmanuel walked into astronomy classroom and took his spot in the classroom. He was excited to be able to get to look in his telescope. The teen took down what the professor was telling them in the lecture, making sure that he was getting down the important information, given that this was going to help him in being able to do the calculations. The teen then was able to actually get to his telescope and after a little bit of fiddling to get it right, he began to take the measurements of the nearest stars, using what they had just learnt to be able to do it. Emmanuel found it easy, not struggling at all with any of the calculations. He worked away until the professor wrapped up the lesson and he left room.