It is in the latest Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix, that readers get the confirmation that the 'Boy who
lived' is indeed interested in a science that even some Muggles are
good at: Astronomy, the study of celestial objects, of space and of
the physical universe as a whole. Maybe the awful Dursleys did do some
good things with Harry when they let the wizard, who did not yet know
he was one, learn Astronomy.

At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry though, Harry and his
two best friends, Ron and Hermione, seemed to be going on more with
the giant of the giants: Jupiter but, to be more precise, with its
moons.

But unluckily for the wizards and witches, Astronomy was making
life difficult. As Harry and his friends would be sitting for their
OWL's (Ordinary Wizarding Level) at the end of the year, they were
bombarded with homework. This was fortunately corrected by Hermione
before being actually handed to the teachers. And believe me this was
a good thing, too, as both Harry and Ron were making terrible mistakes.
If it were not for Hermione, both boys would be getting a 'D' standing
for Dreadful on the top corner of their parchment rolls:
'Harry, you must have misheard Professor Sinistra', says Hermione,
'Europa's covered in ice not mice!'

Europa, as you might have guessed, is way too cold for mice.
Spacecrafts have taken photos of this natural satellite and Europa
does look lifeless.

If you are a Harry Potter fan though, you may well say that Harry
went on Europa by magic and then saw living organisms there. Well
coming to think of it, maybe he did find life on Europa if, of course,
he ever went there.

This is because, below Europa's ice coating, scientists think that
there may well be a big ocean of liquid water. The biggest ocean in
the Solar System, in fact, and that says something. Here on Earth, life
and water appear to go together. So it is logical to think that there
may be life in that ocean of Europa, is it not? Of course life in the
form of microbes or some sort of alien fish is expected. And maybe
swimming mice!

Unfortunately the mystery of life in Europa cannot be solved by
this generation and I personally think nor can the next. This is
because of the technology which still needs to take a big step
forwards.

Back at Hogwarts, Hermione was correcting one of Ron's essay
about Io, another of Jupiter's numerous satellites, when she spotted
yet another mistake. She remarked,
'And it's Io that's got the volcanoes.'

She was right again. Some people (I'll say including Ron) say that
Io looks like a pepperoni pizza because the satellite is dotted with
volcanoes.
'Io has more pepperoni-coloured volcanoes than Ron Weasley has
freckles', says Dr Tony Phillips. At this very moment dozens of these volcanoes are vomiting the hottest lava in the Solar System. The
plumes rise so high into space that volcanic ash freezes before
falling back to the ground as sulphurous snow. NASA's spacecrafts have
actually flown through these plumes and survived.

Back on Earth and at Hogwarts, more precisely, where Hermione told
Ron over the latter's shoulder,
'Jupiter's biggest moon is Ganymede, not Callisto.'

Ganymede is the largest known satellite discovered in the entire
Solar System. It is a little wider than Mercury, which is the closest
planet to the Sun in the Solar System.

Ron's mistake is not of those terrible ones, though, because Callisto
is only a little smaller than Ganymede. Like Europa, Callisto may be
concealing an ocean.

These four satellites were all discovered by Galileo Galilei in
1610. Galilei was astounded when he observed Jupiter through his
primitive telescope as he saw four little 'stars' near the giant
planet. He was even more amazed when he discovered that these 'stars'
were moving in what seemed to be an orbit around Jupiter from night to
night. Astronomers now call these four natural satellites the Galilean
satellites.

Almost everything that is known about the Galilean satellites comes
from NASA's spacecraft, especially the two Voyager probes. But
Hogwarts is a school of magic whereas Astronomy is simply magic.

Other science issues (not too complicated don't you worry)
can be found at:

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13.01.05 Front Page

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