101 words in 1 photo
101-word stories told with 1 photo.
The Moon
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 1
Over 100 moons populate our solar system, out of which, Neptune has 13, Saturn has 48, Jupiter has 62 and Earth has just one. Our Moon, named by the romans Luna, is remarkable in size: is the largest moon of our solar system in relation to its planet. It’s a quarter of the size of Earth. To reach the moon, astronomers travel around 3 days. A single day on Moon is the equivalent of 27.3 Earth days. Luna has one side that is permanently towards our planet. Even though so close to Earth, Luna is a different world from our planet.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 1
The moon has no atmosphere at all, which means that there is no way to carry sound waves. If you would try to communicate on the Moon with a friend, the other person could not hear you, except by radio. This also means that there are no air molecules to scatter light from the sky, therefore, from the moon, the sky are always black. The temperature differences are gigantic and tiny meteorites go right down on the surface of the Moon. Bigger meteorites are responsible for the dark regions we see on the surface of the Moon from Earth at night.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 1
One of the impacts is called Mare Orientale (the Eastern Sea). It’s 600 miles across. The impact that created it, must have been so massive and direct that resembles a bull’s eye. 3 concentric rings of mountain ranges surround the Mare Orientale. Some of the mountain picks rise up to a few thousand feet. These are the effects of the monster impact. The surface on the moon is static. It has no tectonic plates, however, there are mountains up there. The reason for this is that during the impact, large amount of material is thrown outside and surrounds the impact sights.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 1
The moon has a very real physical effect on the Earth itself: it is responsible for the rise and fall of our oceans’ tides. Every day, there are two high tides: one towards the moon, and one on the opposite side of the Earth, caused by the Earth’s centripetal force. Moon’s gravitation is also directly responsible for the continuous survival of terrestrial life, stabilizing the climate of Earth. It influences the degree of tilt in the Earth’s rotational axes constant. This tilt maintains the repeatable cycle of seasons as our planet orbits the Sun. The Moon is extremely important to us.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 1
How did the Moon come to orbit Earth? Throughout time, there have been several theories:
- The Fission Theory: Moon was once part of Earth and early in the history, somehow separated from our planet.
- The Condensation Theory: Moon and Earth condensed together from the original nebula that formed the Solar System.
- The Ejected Ring Theory: A disk of material was formed and orbited around Earth, and this matter eventually condensed to form the Moon in orbit around the Earth.
- The Capture Theory: The gravitational field of our planet captured the Moon, while it approached from somewhere else.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 1
All of the above theories, and others, had their down falls. In 1969, US astronauts brought lunar rocks and dusty soil (Regulus) on Earth. Geologist realized that they have in their hands basaltic rocks, similar to rocks in Hawaii. They also saw very chaotic rocks, which were created during massive impacts on the moon. These rocks contained particles, which indicates that a big ocean of lava must have covered the Moon when it formed. To date, the giant impact theory is the most acceptable theory, which explains the formation and the origin of the Moon. However, scientists continue studding our Moon.
Atatürk Bridge
Image copyright © Ioana Negoita
The Atatürk Bridge, named after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey, is a highway bridge on the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey.
It was originally completed in 1836 with the name Hayratiye Bridge and was ordered by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II. The opening was personally made by the Sultan, who crossed the bridge on his horse. This original bridge was circa 400 meters long and 10 meters wide, and was built as a bascule bridge for allowing large ships to pass. In 1875 it was replaced by a second bridge, made of iron.
Transfagarasan
Image copyright © Ioana Negoita
The Transfăgărășan is the second-highest paved road in Romania, and it means the street that crosses the Fagarasi Mountains. Built as a strategic military route, the 90 km of twists and turns run north to south across the tallest sections of the SouthernCarpathians, between the highest peak in the country, Moldoveanu, and the second highest, Negoiu. The road connects the historic regions of Transylvania and Wallachia, and the cities of Sibiu and Pitești. The road was constructed between 1970 and 1974, built mainly with military forces. It came as a response to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union.
Image copyright © Ioana Negoita
The road climbs to 2,034 metres altitude. The most spectacular route is from the North. It is a winding road, dotted with steep hairpin turns, long S-curves, and sharp descents. The Transfăgărășan is both an attraction and a challenge for hikers, cyclists, drivers and motorcycle enthusiasts alike. The road also provides access to Bâlea Lake and Bâlea Waterfall. It has more tunnels (a total of 5) and viaducts than any other road in Romania. Near the highest point, at Bâlea Lake, the road passes through Bâlea Tunnel. Among the attractions nearby is the Poienari fortress, castle of Vlad III the Impaler.
A sunny summer afternoon in Parque de Retiro
Image copyright © Ioana Negoita
Madrid’s largest green area, el Parque de Retiro, is a popular and a magnificent place to spend a sunny afternoon. Some people rent rowboats and paddle in the pond, others just enjoy a tasty ice-cream under the shade of the trees, others relax on benches and there are those who enjoy a great day and place for photography. But it was not always like this. In the 17th century only the royal family was using it privately. A century later, the park was opened to the public too, but in the beginning, only those dressed formally were allowed to enter it.
The extremely active Milky Way
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 2
A hundred thousand light years in diameter, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is an extremely active monster. Even though it began to exist around 13 billion years ago, the Milky Way, a gigantic place of extremes, is still under construction. Out of the different types of galaxies, our galaxy is a barred spiral. Bars generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas within spiral galaxies and can affect spiral arms as well. In the center of our galaxy there is such a bar, with around 30 million stars gravitate to it and spiral arms attach of from this bar.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 2
Earth is located in one of the galaxy’s spiral arms at about halfway from the center of the galaxy and it’s outer edge. On a clear summer night, from earth the Milky Way shows itself like in the image above. However, seen from the top-down, our galaxy looks like a disk formed by multiple spiral arms. We can never get to far away from our galaxy to actually see it, but astronauts can picture it by looking at other galaxies in the universe. The galaxy is so gigantic, that our solar system needs 250 million years to orbit the galactic center.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 2
Surrounding the middle of our galaxy there are stars that are between 10 and 11 billions old. In the center of the Milky Way there lays a super massive black hole. 4 million times more massive then our Sun, compared to other back holes in the universe, it is not so gigantic anymore. Astronauts think that our black hole is spinning at about one spin per 11 minutes. But not only the center of the galaxy is of major interest. The spiral arms have actions of their own: stellar neighborhoods are being created and stars are born. This is our galaxy.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 2
Most of the galaxy is not visible to us due to the cosmic dust that surrounds us. In the Milky Way there are stellar neighborhoods, constellations, nebulas and many others. However, we live on a dusty planet, in a dusty galaxy in a dusty universe. What we call an empty space is not really empty. It’s filled in with dust that blocks even the most advanced telescopes to see beyond it. Optical telescopes can see only as far as the closest stardust. But where the light cannot pass through, the radio waves rush in, which is crucial in analyzing the space.
Foto credit: The Universe TV Show season 2
But dust and gas are the reason for an amazing sunset spectacle. The Sun at sunset appears yellow, orange or red due to two reasons: the molecules of air in the atmosphere are scattering away the violet, blue and green light out of our line of sight, and particles like dust, or smoke, or smug absorb more the blue light then the red light. When the sunlight comes into our atmosphere, the shorter wave lengths (blue light) get scattered more then the long waves (red light). Therefore, the sky looks blue to us from the Earth due to light’s magic trick.
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Chianti wines
Image copyright © Ioana Negoita
Chianti is a wine produces in central Tuscany between Florence, Siena and Arezzo. In this region they produce one of the best wines in the world, being always in the top chart of the Wine Spectator. For a wine to retain the name of Chianti, it must be produced with at least 80% Sangiovese grapes. The different zones of Chianti Classico have unique characteristics that can be exemplified and perceived in wines produced (i.e. Chianti Classico wines from the Castellina area tend to have a very delicate aroma and flavor, while Castelnuovo Berardegna wines are the most ripe and richest tasting).
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