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Class starts at 11:30 PM. Today's Class Schedule: a. Overview - the Red Planet. b. Early History - Speculation & Possibiilties Telescopes will not be necessary for class unless otherwise noted. Remember to bring note taking materials with you to class (you will be excused from this for the Jan 10th session) Should you have any questions, feel free to visit my office between your daytime classes. For tutoring, please make an appointment with me prior. Feel free to ask questions! The astronomy classroom has now been remodelled to be 'indoors' (see post for details) and have windows that look outwards into an animated  image of space, similar to the Great Hall's ceiling enchantment. At the center of the room is a large sphere that is being used as a projector; underneath is the old armillary sphere. Desks are arranged in a circle around this globe and two alcoves (southwest and northwest) have small fireplaces to heat the room, which are raised slightly above the floor with steps leading to them. The original Astronomy classroom looked like this.

OOC Note
Astronomy group projects were presented in class the week before. Grades to be handed out at the beginning  of this class; you can choose what grade you received and react accordingly.

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Classes were getting better. Ever since Jonas's interview last month, Tapendra had been glad for the improving weather; he was able to send the students outdoors to chart more often. He'd rather lost some of his sunniness over his subject in the days after.

But the first year's projects had been a general success - he'd enjoyed their presentations, for the most part, and had tried to let the students who were struggling gear the projects to their work level.  It was easier to be enthusiastic again, in light of that. Ignan had helped considerably, too. It didn't do to let himself get torn up over Prideaux and his mother. Not when there'd been little news, and less action from the man. All he could do was wait, guardedly, and protect the girls..and carefully watch the Aurors, as best he could.

And guard the rest of the students, he thought as the students shuffled in, some of them yawning. He wouldn't put it past Prideaux to endanger other students if he found out Tapendra was fond of any of them. Bastard wouldn't have a hard time doing it, would he?

Darker thoughts set aside, he rose from his desk as the students gathered and took up his usual position at the globe. Outside the windows, the vista of Mars slowly rotated - Olympus Mons in view, the massive volcano dominating the landscape.

"Good evening!" he chirped, beaming at the first years. Despite their difficulties, they were were his favorites.

"First of all, several things before we begin," he said, wand resting in the palm of his hand as he spoke. "Your grades for your presentations are done," he said, waving his wand; the papers sailed from his desk, flitting to the appropriate student. "Overall, you all did very well. I hope some of you had fun with the project - and if you didn't, well, it's over now."

His hand come to rest on the globe, which also showed Mars; this time as a full sphere, showing the Mariner Valley and all of Mar's scarred surface. "Secondly, from now on, we have half classes - after the lecture, I'll be sending you outside to chart. Sometimes, we'll do charting at the beginning of class. It'll be mixed up a bit." He smiled in a slightly more amused way. "And lastly...from now on, we'll have the occasional pop quiz."

Looking down at the planet, he paused a moment, letting that sink in - then beamed at them again. "Now then! This week we start our unit on Mars! No more dinosaurs, I'm sorry to say - or monkeys." He snapped his wand into the palm of his offhand again, tapping it.  "So! Who can tell me the basics of Mars? You've all gotten to chart it - but what do you know about it?"

Dahlia entered the Astronomy tower with a stifled yawn. As she pulled her hand away from her mouth she offered Professor Trishna a wide smile before settling into her usual desk. She pulled out her supplies for the day, a roll of parchment, an ink bottle and a fresh quill. She stared out at the landscape previewed in the enchanted windows, enjoying the red glow it cast over the classroom.

She snatched her paper out of the air before it had the chance to settle on her desk. A wide smile spread across her light pink lips as she spotted the neatly printed O at the top of her paper. She had expected anything less but she had worked hard and it felt good to be rewarded for said hard work. She sometimes wished her fellow roommates had the same drive, those like her brother. She supposed they still had six years to buckle down but there was no harm in getting a head start right?

She looked up at Professor Trishna with a smile and felt heat rise to her cheeks, an all too familiar sensation that she had come to associate with being within the presence of Tynan, "Mars was named after the Roman God of War but most people know it as the Red Planet. The high concentration of Iron Oxide on the planet's surface gives it that colour. The surface of the planet is covered with crater impacts, valleys, mountains and volcanoes, it even had polar ice caps and has the highest mountain in the entire solar system."

It was another ingenious night for Erik.

Not only had he gotten an A (not the best he could accomplish, but hey, it would do,) but he had come to class with a mastery of the color-changing charm they had learned in charms the other day, and on the day they were to talk about Mars too! What luck!

As he put his paper down to listen to his sister he clasped his little green fingers together as his white smile was plastered against his green face, topped off with spiky yellow hair, to celebrate one of his favorite little green martians.

After his sister finished her summarization of the red planet, Erik drummed his fingertips together and piped up, "Martians," he said with a dreamy and mischievous voice, "are also from Mars..." his eyebrows rose and his smile peeled even further across his face.

Eirene had held a grudge against Erik Collins ever since that day in March when he'd pulled her into an unsanctioned musical number during breakfast. The grudge was so great that she was too distracted to mind when Dahlia answered the question about Mars before she could.

After he'd made his comment, Eirene swiveled in her chair to frown at him.

"Martians aren't allowed in class," she told him snottily, then glanced at the professor because she knew she'd spoken out of turn. Still, it was impossible to keep her mouth shut when he was sitting there with his green face and his silly voice. Surely the professor would order him to change back to normal, dock Gryffindor twenty points, and thank her for pointing out Erik's trouble-making ways?

Earth logic. Eirene had none. It might have been why she'd received an 'E' on her Astronomy project, when she'd been hoping for an 'O'.

They really needed to do more group projects.  So far, all of her decent grades came from projects that utilized the efforts of multiple people.  She and Erik ... well, mostly Erik, had done quite well on their last project which resulted in Mairead smiling approvingly at the "A" on the page.  "A" was, most certainly, acceptable! 

After shoving the page unceremoniously in her bag and ignoring the quite whisper of the parchment ripping against one of her other books, Mairead turned her attention to the class.  And, apparently, Mars.  Or, rather, Little Miss Rene's obnoxious know-it-all gabbing.  She'd thought Erik's comment was amusing and, besides, he was a Gryffindor.  They had to stick together. 

Martians aren't allowed in class.

"They let ye in, di'nt they?" Mairead pointed out, arching her eyebrows in the Ravenclaw's direction before turning rapt attention on Professor Trishna, bouncing in her chair in an obvious, exaggerated imitation of the girl's brown-nosing. 

Cyhirae smiled down at the 'O' on her paper, she had worked hard to get that grade. She would have been disappointed with anything less given that she had an unfair advantage compared to everyone else. Though she supposed that's why her father had graded her harder.

"Martians don't exist," she stated to Eirene, Erik and Mairead, "whatever life Mars might have had, it's long dead." She then focused on Erik, eyebrow raised, "Really? Little green men? That's really cliché for you. I mean if you're going to go the green skinned route at least have big boobs and say you're from Orion."

She leaned down on her elbows, resting her cheeks in her hands and smiled. "Why not have an alien thats more exotic, like a big, pink jellyfish that has implants to communicate with other species because it uses bioluminescence to communicate with it's own? Or even giant elephant like creatures that speak in monotone and communicate so subtlety that they must notate their emotions every time they speak to another species?"

Cyhirae's facial expression went completely flat and she now spoke in a slow, ponderous monotone, "Disdain: The creative level of your current costume is lacking compared to previous effort." She then broke into a big smile, eyes glittering with excitement. "Though we have found no current life on Mars, though one day humans might live there after colonizing it."

Erik was quite happy that he got a rise out of Eirene, and snerked at Mairead's imitation of that Ravenclaw. Then another piped up, Erik was on a roll, so he quickly and happily retorted on Cyhirae with relative ease, "I don't think your dad would appreciate me talking in a monotonous unintelligble made-up alien language for the whole class, or walking in as a giant elephant, or turning myself into a pink jellyfish--" he made a face at the Ravenclaw, "what planet are you from?"

Then he scruffed his yellow hair back proudly, "It's the classics, Trishna, the classics," then he moved on to correct her. Oh to correct a Ravenclaw, never loses it's joys, "Besides, I didn't say they are on Mars, I said they were from Mars.  They could've existed at some point--just moved, you don't know." And he knew that was true, she didn't, wasn't an astronaut, and therefore, wasn't a credible source.

"Some creative level you've got there," he finished of proudly.

Ah, the first years - sometimes he loved them, sometimes he wanted to hit all of them with a newspaper. Tough love, maybe.

"Well done, Miss Collins," he said, smiling. "Five points to Hufflepuff-"

Eirene's chirping at Erik was an issue, however...mostly because Tapendra had becoming used to Erik's eccentricities, and found them a tad endearing. The boy was enthusiastic about something to do with this class, wasn't that good enough? "Enough, girls," he chided instead. "Should any Martians wish to turn up to class, they are certainly welcome, provided they don't turned out to be Manhunters..."

Cyhirae, however, was not helping. He stared at his daughter with a mix of shock and embarrassment...and amusement. "No more Star Trek for you, young la-" he got cut off as she spoke in monotone, and his look twisted to a grin, betraying a laugh. He clacked his jaw shut. "Ahem," he cleared his throat.

He cleared his throat pointedly. "Mister Collins, you can keep your costume provided it causes no further debate, understood?"

Turning to the globe, he decided to quickly continue, before the children could continue their -admittedly amusing - debate about aliens. "As Miss Collins says, Mars's landscape is extremely dramatic, as we'll discuss in a moment. The reddish color is caused by Iron Oxides in the soil - which one of you can tell me what the common name for Iron Oxide is?"

"Whatever life Mars might have had, it's long dead."

"So - just like this class," Mairead muttered under her breath, leaning over and resting her cheek on the top of her desk.  She was tempted to point out that not all aliens were little green men.  In some movies, they were grey.

But, then, in the midst of all of that, Mairead heard an unexpected word come out of Cyhirae's mouth.  She lifted her head and stared at the girl, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson.  The Gryffindor couldn't believe her ears!  The Ravenclaw had really ... really said that in front of the class?  In front of the teacher?  Girls just ... didn't talk about such things in public.  Let alone in classes.  With ... boys! 

"Ye ... ye can't say that!" Mairead hissed at Cyhirae, leaning towards the girl.  And, they called her uncouth. 

Mairead didn't quite understand the rest of what the Ravenclaw had to say.  Words like 'bioluminescence' and 'monotone notating elephants' just went straight over her head.  By now, though, she was used to that in this class.  Right along with Cyhirae and Rene battling it out for biggest show off.  But, last she'd checked, Rene hadn't made the professor almost laugh.  She was falling behind and the scowl she cast the girl made it clear Mairead was disappointed. 

Professor Trishna pushed the class topic forward.  Of course, she didn't know the answer to the question - she never did in this class.  Usually she was able to survive the boredom better but, for whatever reason, tonight her ability to fight restlessness was short lived.  "Why do we care?"  Mairead muttered as much to herself as anything as, with a resigned sigh, she let her head fall to her desk once more.  "Not like we're ever gonna go there."

"Ye ... ye can't say that!"

Cyhirae raised her eyebrow at Mairead, off all the people she expected to have a problem with her choice of words Mairead was the last of them. Even her father, dispite his comment about not letting her watch Star Trek anymore, laughed about it. Though she had no idea why anyone would protest to the word, 'boobs'. It's not like she was calling them funbags or something.

Erik's comment however...

"Something having the label of classic doesn't mean that it isn't cliché. And it certainly isn't creative." His smugness certainly rankled; his outright denial of facts didn't help either. Cyhirae opened her mouth to continue but her father's interjection stopped her. His decision about Erik's costume and returing to the topic of Mars ment that the time for continuing the debate about martians was over. Pouting about it would be useless in these circumstances, so she decided to take a more productive mindset.

Cyhirae raised her hand to catch her father's attention,"Iron Oxide is more commonly known as rust. It is belived that most of the rust formed a long time ago when Mars was a warm and wet planet as opposed to the cold, dry dust ball it is now. Any rust that has formed recently is belived to be caused by the minerals being exposed to ultraviolet rays in sunlight."

"Right, be quiet, all of you," Tapendra said, though his voice betrayed his amusement - and a tad bit of annoyance. "We won't be talking about women's...women in this class again, alright? We already covered mammals and milk and that's as close as we're getting." Unless he got told to deal with sex-ed. Ugh, the thought...!

He cleared his throat. "Anyway - correct, Cyhirae. Mars gains its red color due to rust. The entire planet's surface looks much like this.."

Tapendra waved his wand, and the windows changed from the orbital view of the planet to a vast vista of red rock, desolate and bare.

"Not the most hospitable planet, and yet - if humans ever inhabit other planets, Mars will be the first. We'll get into colonization later in this section, and yes, Erik - we'll talk about real Martians. And what real humanoid Martians will be like." His smile slowly turned to his usual eager one; he bounced on his toes for a moment.

"Now then, let's start at the beginning. Mars formed the same way as Earth did, and at the same time, but it's smaller than our own planet; it's surface area is slightly less than Earth's dry land, its gravity about the same as Mercury's.  Further from the sun, smaller, and currently bright red and desolate. But ancient Mars likely looked much, much different than it does today, as some of you mentioned..."

A tap of his wand, and the globe changed again; Mars appeared, but with large oceans. "At one time in the ancient past, Mars had huge oceans; similar to early Earth, as we  discussed. So...what happened? Can any of you hazard a guess?"

Heliotrope spent most of the time starring at the mark on her paper. P. What did 'P' mean again? Not perfect. There were comments about originality, creativity, and not just reading aloud from your notes that nearly quoted the text verbatim.

The talk of martians glossed right over here but she gazed wide eyed at the projection of Mars. A rocky, rough place. Would rust colored Mars rocks feel different than Earth ones? Maybe soft. For comparison, Heliotrope was picking gum from the bottom of her desk, left by earlier students. Maybe Mars rocks were squishy.

She stared at the image of an ocean covered Mars, half of the planet from this angle. But now the water was gone. Heliotrope thought back to a telescope viewing of Mars, something her mother once showed her.

"The oceans receded to one single spot."

“Martians aren't allowed in class.”

Adley rolled his eyes. The Ravenclaw sounded like a governess on Shrinking Solution. He’d been about to murmur, “Neither are puppets,” when Mairead spared him the trouble. He shot her a look that seemed to float ambiguously between admiration and suspicion. It was strange, how such similar thoughts came to mind at exactly the same moment-- but left their mouths in dialects so different they might as well have been speaking two wholly separate languages. Still, he liked the way she spoke, and he understood her. For the most part.

Ravenclaw, putting its Know-It-All crown to good use, also seemed to be winning the race for Most Insufferable. Adley would almost have rather been locked in a broom cupboard with Effie than listen to Eirene and Cyirae recite the dictionary, but the keyword was almost.

His lips curled in in silent appreciation as Erik spouted off what he was thinking, but Adley was more calculated, less likely to burst on command. When he did burst, though...

No, no. Mustn’t dwell on that.

He let up on his quill, careful not to press down so hard that he would tear straight through the parchment-- it had happened in two lessons with Eirene since January. Any more of her word vomit, and he was like to shatter glass with an accidental loss of control. That would not be a pleasant letter home.

Staring down at the chapter he'd read for homework, he recalled the history of Mars. Galactic history was tricky, and least of all because muggles had all sorts of fanciful ideas about what had happened. One had to take into account the Divinatory mythologies, wizards' knack for traveling beyond the speed of light, and Merlin knew how many centuries of Dark Magic that might or might not have perpetuated certain falsehoods... and buried certain truths. And those centaurs... Adley was a boy intrigued, but he stayed away from the men with hooves. He always felt like they were reading him, and Adley Rothwell hated to be read.

"Mars has a low atmospheric pressure," Adley ventured, after a moment's pause and an upward dive of his hand. "And very low temperatures. The liquid it retains is frozen. It's probably been that way for millions of years..."

But that didn't mean wizards couldn't traverse it. If on his 17th birthday Adley could disappear and reappear, why couldn't he very well planet-hop to Mars? Bubble Head Charms, Time Turners, brooms, spells to melt water and warm one's body... they all allowed a skilled wizard to natural conditions. If the information was in the text book, it had had to come from somewhere, and as much as Adley admired Mairead, and thought she was brilliant on a broom, he didn't think her muggle chums were particularly good fliers. Rather, Adley imagined a bunch of old wizarding pirates on a ship in the sky, sailing for Mars and its ancient ice caps.

Tapendra raised his eyebrows - first at Heliotrope, and then at Adley.

"Not quite, Miss LeJean," he said kindly, though his gaze shooting to her gills gave away his surprise she'd piped up at all. Part of him still wondered how that worked, and wanted to drag the girl under an x-ray or CT scan to find out...

He broke his pause as Adley spoke up, and quickly smiled at the boy. He actually sounded like he was confident on those points, too; possibly a first among the Gryffindors. "A truth, Rothwell, though not exactly the answer to my question. It is certainly one of the other effects of the process we believe lost the planet its oceans, however."

A tap to the globe and early Mars appeared in cross section, showing the blazing core. "Now, when we discussed the formation of the solar system, we discussed how planets form a sphere shape as they build enough mass - and remember, the building process of call accretion. And, when we discussed Earth, we talked about how Earth generates its magnetic field - via its spinning iron core."

The half-planet spun gently in the globe, allowing the students to see the model. "When Mars formed, it certainly had a similar core, giving it a powerful magnetic field. As we said, our magnetic field aids us by shielding us from harmful emissions form our Sun and other stars. But Mars lost its shield; the emissions from the Sun eventually destroyed most of the Martian atmosphere, effectively chipping it away over time."

He leaned on the globe, his height allowing him to cross his arms on top of it, his chin resting on his crossed arms and one foot cocked around the opposite ankle.

"There is no 100% proven reason that Mars most its magnetic field. The current dominant theory is that once the accretion process ended, the planet cooled - the core solidified and the field was no longer generated. We'll discuss that the week after next, when we look at Mar's geology. The important fact is, for now, that Mars has the remnants of a magnetic field, but no currently active one."

He straighted up again, though remained with most of his weight on the globe, which - after a tap and soft word - was now showing the hot core cooling and slowing down.

"With the atmosphere mostly gone, Mars lost warmth and pressure. We're only discussed pressure a bit when we talked about Earth, but - can any of you tell me or guess what would happen if you put a bowl of water out on Mars?"

Charles watched the chaos that was a typica; class with no small amusement. " The average pressure on the surface of Mars is about 6 times that of earth's, I believ[1], So with boiling and freezing points increasing with pressure, I would imagine that any water on the surface of Mars would rapidly freeze. I rememebr reading somewhere that it is theorised that at the lowest elevations water might exist in all three states, but I can't be sure." Charles said, fairly confident he had the correct answer.

1.	source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars