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Note
Due to the time skip, the 3rd years have had 2 class sessions by themselves before this post. I am running under the assuption that those two classes consisted of a review class and test, which is being handed back today. If you'd like to note how your character did on the test (which was general review and a 'what you should know at this point' kind of test) that would be great. For now, assume the curriculm is semi back on-track.

The record player had been a good buy, he decided. It certainly made his office a lot more fun to organize, though he was dissapointed he didn't have a way to really play his more modern music yet. Still, he'd kept his records, so having them here gave him something to listen to.

Not that the students would appricate it, of course. That Foley girl - and her mother - probably thought it rotted your brain or something equally silly.

Yes, he was still stinging with that Howler he'd gotten; all of the letters he got from Pureblood and narrow-minded parents annoyed him, but the jab about how muggle ideas were corrupting and detrimental had stung. What a crock! Sometimes it made him wonder why he bothered - half these parents didn't even both to teach their kids what tectonic plates were.

Ruefully, he wondered if his own mother and Mrs. Foley had ever met. He imagined they'd get on well.

He was aware he was being cynical again, and did his best to stop it - it did him no good to grumble about parents, really. He was better off just ignoring most of them. He went back to organising his papers, and getting the tests out. Some of them were covered in his notes, written in his neat, beautiful and hard-to-read script. Some of them were lucky in that respect - after a few tests he'd wisened up and started typing his responses and attaching them as a sheet to their tests.

The record player spun away in the corner, and as he was tucking the papers away and starting to get his books out of the way, the next song started. Grinning, he waved his wand; he had a few minutes til the kids usually turned up, so he had time to listen to this. Besides he wasn't about to skip this one. That was a sin of some sort.

As was not singing to it, of course.

"...just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit..."

The windows showed a disturbingly apocolypic scene, especially when compaired to the music that filled the room; outside pools of lava made the room glow red, and a distant volcanoe erupted into a yellow-red sky. The globe was just showing Venus, giving the students a clue as to what they were looking at. He made a quiet mental note not to set the windows when he was in a bad mood.

"...their shadows searching in the night..."

He waved his wand to finish putting books back as the clock ticked towards the class start time, and couldn't help singing louder as the song picked up. "Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on..."

The classroom was clean, and to his annoyance his small clock went off, telling him he had 10 minutes til class started. Sighing and humming his way back over to the record player, he stopped the record and carefully put it back in its case, locking it in his desk.

There were a lot of things he'd rather the 3rd year group didn't catch him doing, and singing to his music was one of them, ranked next to correcting D&D character sheets and just above reading any of Dolly St. James's books. At least with the 7th years they'd get it. And possibly enjoy it. He straightened his clothing and got himself looking professional before sitting at his desk and shuffling the papers again.

Nikolas strode into the classroom, for once the first one  to arrive. He nodded to Professor Trishna before settling into one of the nearby desks. He shot a questioning glance at the hellish scene filling the windows and then at the globe in the middle of the classroom. "Ah," he nodded in recognition, the chalkboard confirming his guess, "Venus, Earth's twisted sister."

He leaned back, tipping the chair on its back two legs, "Maybe we'll actually get to new stuff today, instead of it being all review." It surprised him how much he was actually beginning to like this class though there was a pretty obvious reason, learning about science stuff was way better than star charting any day. Especially learning about stars and space exploration, that was always exciting.

Niko glanced over at Professor Trishna, "Professor, will we ever get into the space exploration part of Astronomy?"

He looked up, having gotten absorbed in his papers, and smiled vaguely as he quickly tried to remember Nikolas's name.

"I certainly hope so, Mister Falkenrath," he said, stacking the paperwork and locking it up. "However, given our schedule and the..." He couldn't stop the aside glance to the trash can, "The feelings of some parents, I don't know if we'll have time this year. Perhaps next year, when things aren't quite so...hectic."

He finished locking up his desk, and seeing that they still had a few minutes before the session began, he leaned on the desk with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. "Though, honestly, I think it might require more...introduction than I had hoped, so it really may be doomed to next year. " He sighed.  "Pity, really."

Ayla entered the Astronomy class room with a yawn. She stopped dead in her tracks when she looked up at the scene plastered across the large enchanted windows causing a few students to bump into her grumbling as they moved past to get to their seats. Her green gold eyes scanned the volcanic landscape the windows depicted and she hauntingly moved forward both fascinated and terrified. When it came down to it Ayla didn't really know much about space or the planets or how anything outside of how earth worked. She had picked up a few things here or there, watching science fiction shows with her dad and listening to rants from her little sister, even the last two years of the class had taught her something but she was definitely one of those students that just didn't get it. It made her wonder if she'd ever make it to her OWLs.

She glanced down at the projection globe that depicted the second planet from the sun. At least she was smart enough to make the connection between the planet and the scene on the windows but she had never thought of Venus as being so  . . . violent. Two things came to mind when she thought of Venus. The first being Mina Aino, the English version of Sailor Venus, from a muggle cartoon show her cousin Lexus used to watch back home. The second being the goddess of Love most notably known as Aphrodite in Greek Mythology. Neither of those made her think of erupting volcanoes and general chaos.

"Professor? Is that really what the surface of Venus looks like?"

Tapendra looked over at Ayla in surprise, but collected himself quickly. "More less, yes, Miss Collins," he said. "Right - take your seats everyone, please."

He strode forward and took up his usual pose at the globe, looking down at the swirling planet for a moment. "As most of you should have guessed by now, we'll be discussing Venus today - both in regards to magic and in regards to the planet as it truly is." He smiled; Venus wasn't exactly how much people imagined it.

"It was once believed Venus could have jungles, water and possibly life on it," he continued, with a glance out the window. "As scientific exploration has definitively proved, this is not - and was never - the case. While Venus is often referred to as our 'sister' planet due to its similar size, it is quite different from Earth. It is home to one of the most hostile environments in our inner solar system."

He smiled broadly. "Do any of you know what some of the factors that make Venus such an unpleasant place to be are?"

Baxter sat off from the others who had already arrived. He wasn't fond of most Gryffindors, and Ayla was... intense at times. He didn't particularly dislike the Hufflepuff girl, but he didn't particularly like her either.

The Ravenclaw perked at the mention of Venus, smiling. Before coming to Hogwarts he had always enjoys science and learning about the solar system. He used to adore the science fair, and remembered making models of the solar system as a young child. He was glad that some of that knowledge was still useful in the wizarding world. At least he had not wasted the first eleven years of his life.

Baxter raised his hand- glad he knew the answer. He waited to be acknowledged before speaking. "Venus has a lot of factors that make it different from earth- and uninhabitable to humans. The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. Earth's is oxygen based. Humans can't breathe in too much carbon dioxide or they die. It's why muggles have detectors for them in their homes. We have one at our house because we burn gas logs in our fireplace."

"It's also really hot there," Baxter added. "The temperature can get to be more than five times hotter than it is on earth- past boiling point. So there isn't any water there, either. Humans and plants- at least the ones we know about- can't survive there." He wasn't one to rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial lifeforms.

"Well done, Mister Fox - 5 points for Ravenclaw. As Mister Fox has said, the surface of Venus is extremely hot - on an average day the temperature is about 800 degrees, well past the boiling point of water. The scene outside the windows is indeed the surface."

He tapped the globe and the planet appeared in cross-section. "Venus is the result of what's called a runaway greenhouse effect.  As heat rises from the core of the planet and is produced by spectacular volcanism, it has no way to cool off. While on Earth our climate is cooled by our tectonic plates and the actions of the moon, Venus has no such aid. This is theorized to cause what has been dubbed a 'resurfacing' event - basically, the core of the planet becomes so hot it forces itself outwards. While it's exciting to think of the surface rock literally melting under the heat, what's more likely is that volcanoes erupt in massive lava flows for literally millions of years. This is theorized to be a cycle, occurring every 400-500 million years."

He smiled. "So, needless to say, the surface is not a friendly place on which to stand, but it's not the only way this...lovely planet could kill you instantly. As Fox mentioned, the atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide - 96% of the atmosphere is CO2, to be exact. However, the other compounds in the atmosphere produce a very deadly kind of rain - do any of you know what the rain on Venus is like?"

Naomi strode into the classroom, pausing to observe the molten landscape outside the window, giving a hummed “humph,” of disapproval. Yes, the view blocked out the chilling wind outside, but the fiery planet dancing outside the windows did nothing to make the room any warmer, and so, beyond Venus being relevant to the lesson—was utterly pointless to the Slytherin wrapped in a scarf and a long coat 24/7. It just made the room ridiculously red.

It also didn’t make taking ridiculously long notes on a glowing red piece of parchment much easier, considering how much Trishna liked to talk—or hear his own voice—whichever was the case. Naomi started to assume that charming a quill to take notes for this class was becoming a physical necessity to avoid hand numbing.

It wasn’t like anything she was writing down was being related to anything wizarding, most of the stuff she sat around learning about the planets with her aunts and uncles at least got theoretically related to astronomy. But this was just great for memorization and regurgitation—overly simple to the point she could probably just turn her notes into some lyrical poem of information she could just spew out at random intervals doing a test. She started to actually wonder what was stopping her from doing so.

She hissed through a sigh, “Acid rain,” she started to tap her foot against her heel lazily, “Sulfuric acid. Too hot t’ hit ‘da ground though—evaporates,” She twirled her quill upwards to point at the ceiling, “Twenty- five kilometers above ground, in ‘di uppuh atmosphere.” She twirled her pen back down onto her parchment; if she ever found a way to visit Venus, she’d have to bring a fancy poncho and galoshes.

Erin was being her usual self in class, trying to find something interesting to do while the professor talked about Venus.  While she knew that this stuff would probably be important...she was bored out of her skull.  And in this case, it appeared her dorm-mate agreed with her.  Though she was pleasantly surprised by the EE on her test, she wondered what was going to happen next.  Erin had heard that tone of voice and Naomi's voice, mainly when Naomi wanted her to focus on something and she was distracted by something trivial.  Which admittedly, happened a lot. 

Scribbling down stuff that could pass for notes at first glance, Erin slipped a note to Naomi.  It read:

Does the red glow annoy you as much as it does me?.

So doing, Erin went back to pretending to care about the lecture.  She figured that she might be able to convince Naomi to help her do something about the eery glow.  If not, she would try to do it herself.  As she tried to think of ways to liven this class up, she came up with an idea, and smiled.  If anyone was looking at her, they would see a Slytherin smirk on her face.  She was just trying to figure out how to make sure her plot go unnoticed.  Or at least blamed on somebody else. 

"Correct, Miss Foley. I'm very glad you took the time to study this material ahead of time," he said, amicably.

"True then, as Miss Foley was kind enough to tell us. Venus's clouds produce acid rain - for those of you who know them, it is the same type of acid you find in muggle batteries. This means that, should you attempt to visit Venus, the rain and clouds would literally dissolve the skin right off your bones. Not, then, friendly to human habitation."

He tapped the globe yet again and the planet's atmosphere disappeared, revealing the surface from a space level view. "Venus is spectacularly volcanic. Without seawater or tectonic plates, the vast majority are shield-type volcanoes, erupting almost constantly. As you can see from this image, Venus has valleys - valleys that dwarf any of their kind of Earth. But Venus's valleys are formed by the flow of lava - leading to an ever changing surface."

He cleared is throat and leaned on the globe. "Needless to say, the atmospheric make up and high surface temperatures have made exploration of this planet extremely difficult. Do any of you know why we know what we do about the surface and the atmosphere?"

Niko rolled his eyes at Foley's little speal, "For someone who hates muggle stuff she sure has a lot of advanced knoledge about it."

Do any of you know why we know what we do about the surface and the atmosphere?

Nikolas grinned and raised his hand, his mother forcing him to watch many documentaries over the years meant that he knew this stuff quite well. "Most of our knowlege comes from the efforts of NASA and the Soviet Space programs," here Niko smirked, "Muggle space programs."

"The Mariner and Venera series of space probes were the first to study Venus, giving us our understanding of its atmosphere and enviorment. The Magellan mission gave us a detailed radar map of the Venitian surface and is the reason that we know that Venus lacks plate tectonics and that the planet's surfaces is relatively young."

He shifted forward bringing the chair's front two legs onto the floor. "The latest probe is the Venus Express which has found evidence of past oceans, lightning, and a large double atmospheric vortex at the south pole, among other things."

Tapendra smiled at Nikolas. "Indeed, Mister Falkenrath, and a good summary indeed. Five points to Gryffindor." He shifted as he leaned on the globe, crossing his left arm over to loosely grip his right above the elbow. "As Falkenrath said, the muggles have explored Venus fairly extensively - not as much as Mars, of course, but quite a bit. The first scientific observations of Venus are muggle in origin, dating back to Babylonia. While Wizards have also observed Venus, they - we - do it in a much less exploratory fashion. Muggles first began sending robotic expeditions to the planet in 1961, when the Russian space program sent the Venera mission to take readings of the planet. It sent back data, but an overheating sensor module caused the spacecraft to fail; the first fully successful craft to reach Venus was the American craft Mariner 1."

His smile turned slightly wishful. "As interesting as the full history of space exploration is, we don't really have enough time to cover all of it. However, Mister Falkenrath's summary was fairly complete - go ahead and work off of that. In a few sentances, however, know this: we owe more or less all of our knowledge of Venus as a planet to muggles and their observations."

Placing the tip of his wand on the globe, he switched to Venus with its atmosphere again. "As far as most wizards are concerned, Venus is still deserving of it's name - as the morning star it is a powerful magical focus and tool. In magic it largely governs spells dealing with love and..." he trailed off, flushed, and continued, "...and other things you're far too young to learn about and this school will never teach you, hope to god. Ahem."

He seemed eager to get his mind  away from where it had just wandered, and so spoke quickly. "In Arithmancy, Venus is associated most closely to the number seven. Now then - can any of you tell me which day Venus is best utilized on?"

If Winifred had ever seen Charlie Brown at some point in her lifetime, she would be amused by the fact the adults in the cartoon sounded just like the adults did in her brain during classes. It wasn't that Winifred was a bad student- she just had a short attention span, and was remarkably average in everything. The only studies she cared about were Muggle Studies- and, well, even in that class she never managed to pull off an Es or Os. No matter how hard she "tried".  (And she tried a great deal less than most students- especially for a Hufflepuff, since they were notoriously hard working.)

Thus, after the discussion got going- and Winnie realized she had very little understanding of what was going on, she immediately tuned everything out. Her notes were hap hazard- random scribblings of the bits of conversation that she had gathered,  but mostly there were names of wizard rock stars encircled by hearts with arrows through them. And a few doodles of silly looking dragons.

Freddie did, however, hear mention of when to best view Venus. She looked up from her drawing, tilted her head to the side, and pondered for a moment before answering. "But you can't see Venus in the day!" she called out- clearly confused. "I thought that was why we had astronomy at night- so we could see everything! Cause in the day time the sun is the only celestial body we can see!" Celestial- now that was definitely a big word for Winifred Leigh Oliver to pull out of her vocabulary.

"By day, we mean the full 24-hour period of time, Miss Oliver," he said, and he was glad he wasn't Ryan or Luthas; otherwise some of these students would have gotten dope-slapped. He wouldn't dream of it - alright, that was a lie, there were a few students he privately felt hadn't gotten thrown over their parent's knees enough - but he wouldn't do it, not if he wasn't incredibly provoked.

"And technically, we can occasionally see the moon during the day too," he couldn't have stopped himself from correcting her if he'd tried.

Winifred was never very good at picking up on social clues- especially those from professors, whom she assumed were incapable of really feeling spite toward their students- for the most part, anyway. Especially professors like Trishna. He was a nice man, and so far he had proved to be incredibly patient and knowledgeable. Even if he had tried to correct her about celestial bodies in the day time.

But he was wrong, and Winifred felt it would be a shame not to let him know it- and she might have been just a little affronted that he had tried to correct her.

The Hufflepuff's hand shot up into the air again. "But professor!" she called out, trying to gain his attention. "The moon is not a star," she informed him. (Because, in Winifred's mind, a celestial body simply meant a star or a planet.) "It isn't a planet either! It's just... a moon. So surely that doesn't count. It and the sun are different. Because they are a part of earth."