Saturday, December 31, 2011

Saturday Video: Spiderwebs and a flight over the Earth

by Salman Hameed

Before we get to space, first here is a stunning picture of spiderwebs around trees in Sindh, Pakistan:

The picture was taken by Russell Watkins and here is his description for the Guardian:
Russell Watkins: 'I was in Pakistan a year ago for DFID, looking at the impact of British aid in helping people affected by the floods. In northern Sindh a vast area had been flooded, but the waters had finally receded enough for local communities to start to return. While we were there the local NGOs told us about this odd phenomenon: miles and miles of flooded land, where every piece of vegetation was shrouded in these spider webs, like candy floss. It was stunning – a surreal sight. The trees were the only things above the water, so it was a very strange landscape, definitely ghostly'
And in case you wanted to have an experience of flying over the Earth, here is a short video of a compilation of 600 pictures taken from the International Space Station (you can catch some lightening in the pictures as well): 

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can spot Lake Titicaca from 0:52-0:56.
The simplest possible reason for the webs is...lot of stagnant water means lots of mosquitoes, that means lot of food for spiders when mosquitoes come to roost in trees in the day time. Hence the spider population multiplied exponentially.

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