分类必应美图下的文章

秋分时日的卡斯蒂略金字塔，墨西哥奇琴伊察 Equinox at the Temple of Kukulcan in Chichen Itza, Mexico (© Somatuscani/Getty Images Plus)

Stepping into autumn

Look closely and you'll see a snake slithering down the steps of the Temple of Kukulcan (aka El Castillo or The Castle), in Chichen Itza, Mexico. Not a real snake, it's an image created by natural light and shadows only during the spring and fall equinoxes. The equinox (which means equal night in Latin) is either of the two times each year—like today, the first day of fall—when the Earth's orbit and position cause the Sun to pass directly over the equator, creating equal amounts of daylight and darkness. According to Mayan legend, on both equinoxes this pyramid is visited by Kukulcan, the feathered serpent god. Thousands of spectators gather to watch and celebrate as seven triangles of light slide down the pyramid, illustrating Kukulcan's descent.

Fireworks during La Merce Festival in Barcelona, Spain (© Lucas Vallecillos/age fotostock)

Barcelona bids farewell to summer

Every year, for four days in September, locals and tourists flock to one of Barcelona’s biggest events, La Mercè Festival. It got its beginnings in 1687 when Barcelona was suffering from a plague of locusts. In desperation, city officials voted to ask for the assistance of the Virgin of Grace (Mare de Déu de la Mercè). Delivered from the pestilence, the officials named her patroness of Barcelona, and an annual festival has been celebrated in her honor in the city ever since.

These days, the multiday celebration is considered a farewell bid to the warmer days of summer. Attracting nearly 2 million people, the event is known for its street theatre, castells (human towers), dancing, musical performances, light projection show, and daily street parades with mythical characters and traditional drumming. At the end of the festival, attendees come out in droves for the pièce de résistance—a musical fireworks display known as ‘piromusical.’

鸟瞰生长在森林中的树木，加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华 (© Michael Wu/EyeEm/Getty Images)

“和平之墙”和巴黎的埃菲尔铁塔 'The Wall for Peace' and the Eiffel Tower in Paris for the International Day of Peace (© Prisma by Dukas Presseagentur GmbH/Alamy)

'The Wall for Peace'

In today's image, we're featuring 'The Wall for Peace' in Paris for the International Day of Peace. Since 2000, this exhibit, created by artist Clara Halter and architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, has been inspiring visitors to write their own messages of peace and place them in gaps intentionally created in the structure for that purpose. To mark International Day of Peace, hundreds of events around the world are being held today, including peace fairs, music concerts, meditations, and more. The UN declared it a 'day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.' One of the events today is at UN Headquarters in New York, where the Secretary-General will ring the Peace Bell and participants will observe a minute of silence.

鱼湖国家森林中的美洲山杨，犹他州 The Pando quaking aspen in Fishlake National Forest, Utah (© Don Paulson/Danita Delimont)

Fall comes to the Pando

All is not as it appears to be here at the Pando, in Utah's Fish Lake National Forest. At first glance, visitors likely see a massive grove of quaking aspen trees, their leaves dancing in the wind. But the Pando is not many trees; instead, it's a single organism. Like many aspen groves, each of the 40,000 trees in the Pando are genetically identical stems that sprout from the same root system. First discovered in 1968, the Pando made waves in the scientific world. It's become recognized as one of the heaviest known organisms—weighing 6,000 metric tons—and one of the oldest known living organisms. Scientists estimate it's upwards of 80,000 years old, having endured the last ice age and countless forest fires. It got to be so old partly because most of the organism is protected underground. So, while an individual stem can die, the organism as a whole survives.

It's only recently that human activity has threatened the Pando’s health, with drought, grazing, and fire suppression interfering with its growth. Pando translates as 'I spread out,' in Latin, a reference to the way it extends itself through cloning. But its delicate, fluttering leaves—which turn golden this time of year—have lent it another moniker: the Trembling Giant.

塞巴斯蒂安电影节举办地：圣塞巴斯蒂安和库尔萨尔文化中心 (© Aljndr/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

The Villarrica volcano in Chile on September 2, 2018 (© Cristobal Saavedra Escobar/Reuters)

Celebrating Chile's Independence Day

That's the Villarrica volcano providing fireworks for our observance of Chile's Independence Day celebrations—called Fiestas Patrias—taking place September 18 and 19. The second-most active volcano in South America, Villarrica is known to the indigenous Mapuche people as Rucapillán (Devil's House). This photo was taken on September 2, 2018, alarming nearby residents, but it wasn't nearly as destructive as other relatively recent eruptions, like one in 2015 that prompted authorities to evacuate thousands of people.

Chile's Fiestas Patrias take place each year just before the spring equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, so the Independence Day celebrations double as a kind of spring festival. With most schools and workplaces on a weeklong vacation, people observe the holiday by attending rodeos, going to the beach, visiting family, and—above all—indulging in traditional Chilean food and drink. It's said that Chileans gain 10 pound or more during the Fiestas Patrias. Most gorge themselves on empanadas de pino, which are small pastries filled with minced meat, sautéed onions, hard-boiled egg, olives, and sometimes raisins. The empanadas are typically eaten with a variety of grilled meats from barbecue stands called asados. It's all washed down with local red wine or chicha, which in Chile is a sweet, distilled grape- or apple-based beverage that is almost exclusively drunk during the week of Fiestas Patrias celebrations.

The wild romance of Exmoor

Welcome to Exmoor National Park, a patchwork of landscapes covering 267 square miles of south-west England. Here, grassy open moorland and heather-covered hills nestle up against wooded valleys, streams, waterfalls, farmland and some of the highest sea cliffs in the country – scenery which inspired RD Blackmore's 1869 historical romance novel Lorna Doone.

From Exmoor's highest point on Dunkery Hill – pictured in today's image - visitors can get sweeping views stretching from Dartmoor in the south up to the Bristol Channel and beyond on a clear day, while at night, Exmoor offers one of the best stargazing spots in the UK as an International Dark Sky Reserve.

The park is also home to a large variety of wildlife including Exmoor ponies - which roam freely on the moor – rare butterflies, otters and wild red deer, a nod to Exmoor's past as an ancient royal forest. But keep your eyes peeled for the legendary Beast of Exmoor, a huge puma or panther-like creature which some claim to have spotted roaming the moors.

One of "Drei Gleichen“

The first leaves have already fallen, the temperatures in the morning are steadily decreasing and from today it is official: autumn has begun. With this idyllic shot of the Wachsenburg in Thuringia we would like to tune you to the golden season, which is at the same time the most beautiful for many people.

The Veste Wachsenburg looks back on a centuries-old and varied history. Its origins date back to the year 930, and in the following period the summit castle was destroyed several times and rebuilt or expanded. The Wachsenburg is part of a medieval castle ensemble called "Drei Gleichen".

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