Africa's 7 Natural Wonders

1. Serengeti Migration

The migration crosses Tanzania and Kenya

It pans 18,641.1 square miles (30,000 sq km)

It is the longest and largest overland migration in the world

The name Serengeti means “endless plains”

Source

Source

2. Ngorongoro Crater

It is the largest unbroken volcanic caldera in the world

It’s is referred to as “Africa’s Garden of Eden”

The crater is 12 miles (19 km) across and covers 102 square miles (264 sq km)

It rises over 2,000 feet above the caldera floor

It’s home to over 30,000 animals including the rare black rhino

Source

Source

3. Mount Kilimanjaro

It is the tallest mountain in Africa, reaching 5,895 m

It’s the tallest free-standing mountain in the world

There are seven different peaks, with Uhuru Peak being the highest

Kibo peak features a 1.5 mile wide crater

Source

Source

4. The Nile RIver

It’s the longest river in the world stretching 4,132 miles (6,650 km)

It traverses across 10 countries

The mouth of the river is in Egypt

There  are two sources – one in Uganda and the other in Ethiopia

Source

Source

5. The Red Sea Reef

It’s home to over 1,100 species of fish, of which 1 in 10 occur only in this area

The reef extends over 1,200 miles

Source.

6. Sahara Desert

It’s the largest hot desert in the world

It covers 11 countries and accounts for 3,500,00 square miles (9,000,000 sq km)

The sand dunes are as high as 600 feet (180 meters)

It’s home to several features which could be considered “wonders” themselves

© Alecia Cohen

7. Okavango Delta

It is the largest inland delta in the world

It’s created by annual seasonal flooding which peaks in July and August

It’s flat – with less than 7 feet of variation

It’s been recognized as a World Heritage site

Source: Africa Geografic

The Grand Canyon

By National Geographic
Music: Prophecy

Earth As Art : Masterpieces Of Stone and Ice

Post by "CavalierZee"



Revel in Earth as Art. Make sure you watch in glorious 1080p. Landsat missions were launched for scientific purposes, but they make up one of the most awe-inspiring collections of beautiful images of our home planet.

For the last few centuries, artists have been exploring Earth's untamed and awe-inspiring vistas, often as an antidote to life in the modern world. They evoked the grandeur of the Hudson River, the peace of Scandinavian fiords, or the omnipotent power of the ocean. This romantic ideal today has gained a new vantage point, from space, and a new set of brushes for capturing the beauty of our planet.

Landsat images feature colors tuned to record geological or even human forces at work. More than that, though, this great gallery of Earth explores its timeless beauty, its uncertain path forward.

So take this tour of Earth's great landforms as seen from space. We travel to Africa and the Sahara and Namib deserts, to Argentina and Bolivia, the American heartland, and the great Canadian land and ice forms. Then it's on to Greenland, Iceland, Russia, India, China, and finally the continent down under.

We wrap our journey in a small corner of the vast Great Sandy Desert. The satellite has brought out the scarring action of natural wildfires. The narrow sand dunes that cut across the scene are like cracks on an ancient brittle canvas. A masterpiece, from the turbulent imagination of an artist, whose brushes are wind, and fire, and time.

Magnifying The Universe

Posted by "CavalierZee"

The above is an interactive infographic. We have also developed a complimentary poster that you can view here: Sizes of the Universe poster. If you're technically inclined, here's a look at the references we used to construct these infographics: Facts About The Universe.

Introduction:

This interactive infographic from Number Sleuth accurately illustrates the scale of over 100 items within the observable universe ranging from galaxies to insects, nebulae and stars to molecules and atoms. Numerous hot points along the zoom slider allow for direct access to planets, animals, the hydrogen atom and more. As you scroll, a handy dial spins to show you your present magnification level.

While other sites have tried to magnify the universe, no one else has done so with real photographs and 3D renderings. To fully capture the awe of the vastly different sizes of the Pillars of Creation, Andromeda, the sun, elephants and HIV, you really need to see images, not just illustrations of these items. Stunningly enough, the Cat's Eye Nebula is surprising similar to coated vesicles, showing that even though the nebula is more than 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger, many things are similar in our universe.

We hope you have a blast magnifying the universe, know that each time you zoom in a depth, you're magnifying the universe 10x ... and every time you zoom out, the bigger objects are 1/10th of their prior size.

If you zoom from the biggest object, The Observable Universe (8.8 x 10E26 ... or 880,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000m across), all the way down to the hydrogen atom's proton nucleus (1.7 x 10E-15 ... or 0.0000000000000017m across), you will have zoomed in over 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x! Unbelievable isn't it? Our universe really is immensely massive and surprisingly small.

How To Use:

Step 1:
To experience this interactive infographic in full screen (our recommendation) click the "Full Screen" button in the top right corner of the infographic.

Step 2:
Choose one of nine starting points by moving your mouse over and clicking one of the 9 images (atoms, animals, buildings, mountains, planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies and the observable universe).

Step 3:
Now on the bottom of the infographic, there is a blue blue dot that you can click on with your mouse.Drag the blue circle left to go "up" in size and drag the blue circle right to go "down" in size.

Step 4:
To relocate to one of the nine entry points, click the corresponding yellow dot on the scroller at the bottom of the page

Credits:

You can view a list of image credits used in the construction of this infographic by clicking here.

Produced for Number Sleuth by Science is Beautiful in coordination with Mandril Design and Killer Infographics. 

The Universe made possible by Number Sleuth

Celestial Lights

Posted by "CavalierZee"


By "Ole C. Salomonsen"




[View in full screen. It's magnificent!]

For those who do not know, auroras are caused by solar activity. This is shortly visualized in the video.

Our suns activity varies in 11 year cycles, and we are closing solar maximum (solar max) for our current solar cycle somewhere between 2012-2013, and solar activity has clearly been picking up.

The beginning of 2011 was lots of clouds but weather improved late 2011 and out 2012. This video contains recordings from some of the most spectacular auroral displays I have ever witnessed, and I have seen a few.


For this video I did shoot approx 150.000 exposures from sept.2011 - april.2012 using Canon DSLR's and various wide angle lenses. Approx 6.000 frames in this video. To achieve pannings I used the fantastic Stage Zero + MX2 controller time-lapse gear from Dynamic Perception.

The video is a merge of two parts; the first part contains some more wild and aggressive auroras, as well as a few milky way sequences, hence either auroras are moving fast because they are, or they are fast due to motion of the milky way / stars.

Still, some of the strait up shots are very close to real-time speed, although auroras mostly are slower, she can also be FAST!

The second part has some more slow and majestic auroras, where I have focused more on composition and foreground.

The music should give you a clear indication of where you are :)

BELLA GAIA

Posted by "CavalierZee"

Music by "Kenji Williams"


BELLA GAIA - A 5 min sample utilzing Visualizations by NASA, SCISS/Uniview.


The project is described as:


"A‘Living Atlas’ multimedia journey of our world, and expresses the deeply moving beauty of planet Earth as seen through the eyes of astronauts by successfully simulating space flight. Collaborating with NASA, BELLA GAIA is a new immersive theater experience, a portal for an audience to develop a deeper connection and empathy with our planet Earth. Created by award winning director and classically trained violinist Kenji Williams, BELLA GAIA features a 45 minute live performance by Kenji with orbiting visualizations of Earth from space."


Created by award winning director and classically trained violinist Kenji Williams, BELLA GAIA features a 45 minute live performance by Kenji and world music performers with  orbiting visualizations of Earth from space, and has performed over 70 shows around the world.

From high above the macrocosm down to life as we know it on terra firma, the universe-spanning narrative of Bella Gaia scaled effortlessly through world event scenes ranging from fires in the Amazon basin and time-lapse images of the Arctic ice melt to Egyptian pyramids, exotic Japanese temples, villages of Sri Lanka, and the jazzy urbane landscape of Manhattan. All along this voyage, our spacecraft was fueled by Williams’ soaring musical score that flowed transcendentally from undulating rhythms and intricately detailed melodies to soothing celestial textures embellished with hypnotic effects reminiscent of Jean-Luc Ponty’s Wandering on the Milky Way.

A ‘Living Atlas,’ BELLA GAIA has been designed as a work that will change and evolve over time. The potential to continually update and recreate the show is exciting and promising. If there were any immediate suggestions it might to be for Williams to stand out more against the awesome backdrop of the floating world so we could better see him gracefully weave his electro-acoustic tapestries into the total orbital gestalt. I’d also like hearing the astronauts words more so their sentiments are made all the more poignant at the moment when space, sound, image, mood, and wonder, collide.

BELLA GAIA is a powerful entertainment and educational outreach vehicle for performing arts theaters, festivals, planetariums, universities, government agencies and other institutions that wish to convey a broader world view that the destiny of humans and our planet Earth are inextricably linked. Often received with standing ovations, BELLA GAIA has been featured at top festivals such as the Smithsonian Folklife/NASA festival, 13 NASA events, COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, and to sold-out shows at digital planetariums. BELLA GAIA has delighted audiences from Europe to the USA to Japan, and has proven to engage a wide demographic from 3 year- olds, to students, to heads of government agencies.

(Download 2page PDF summary)

Welcome To Earth

Universal Time-Lapse 

Posted by "CavalierZee"



The official Time-lapse videos list (179): http://bit.ly/yPgIqh

Music: Wolf - First Aid Kit (iTunes) http://bit.ly/yLahqv
Official site: http://bit.ly/zYczXf
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/AEyuBE

Video editor: Zapatou (Luc Bergeron) 
Facebook subscriber: http://on.fb.me/sXXz9X
Twitter: http://bit.ly/stqeOj

I really want to thank Dominic Arpin for this amazing idea ! :http://on.fb.me/syH2Kd