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Sonoma Valley – “Valley of the Moon”

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The Sonoma Valley is a valley in California, close to San Francisco Bay and is also referred to as “Valley of the Moon”. The original Native American Indians who inhabited this valley, called it “sonoma”, which means “Valley of the Moon” in their language. The Miwok and Pomps were Native American tribes that spread in the northern part of California and also settled in this valley. In a legend of the Miwok tribe, it says that the Moon rose from the Sonoma Valley and is there in complete harmony with nature.

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“Rupes Recta” – a line on the Moon

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“Rupes Recta” is the name for a long line, which is visible on the Moon’s surface. The name derives from Latin and means “straight fault”, but due to its prominent shape, it is also called “Sword of the Moon”.

Rupes Recta is located at the edge of the lunar mare Mare Nubium and is one of the best known escarpments of the Moon. It is more than 60 miles long, with a width of 1–2 miles and a height of around 800 feet.

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The Roman Lunula Amulet

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In the Ancient Roman Empire, lunula amulets were often worn as a lucky charm, but also as protection against evil forces and demons. Special crescent-shaped jewelry pieces were made for girls, to grant them the protection of the goddess Diana. Diana is the goddess of the Moon and also of hunting in Roman mythology. Artemis is the equivalent among the Greek Gods.

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The gravity on the Moon

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Gravity is the force of attraction of bodies. Its intensity depends on the mass: the more mass, the higher the gravity.  This is the reason why the gravitational pull is greater on Earth than on the Moon, because Earth is considerably larger and heavier than the Moon. The gravitational acceleration on Earth is with approx. 9.8 m/s² six times as strong as on the Moon with approx. 1.6 m/s². This is why astronauts are able to jump higher on the Moon than on Earth and objects fall to the ground at a lower speed.

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The glowing of scorpions

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Scorpions have the quality that they are fluorescent and glow when in contact with UV radiation. This becomes clearly visible, when they are directly exposed to UV light. However, the UV components, which are contained in the sunlight and the moonlight, are hardly sufficient to produce this glow to an extent that it is visible to humans. Still, scorpions appear to detect the UV components and hence react to moonlight.

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The moon paintings by Lovis Corinth

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The German painter Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) is considered one of the most important representatives of German Impressionism, in his late work also Expressionism. In 1919, his wife built a house for him at the Lake Walchen, south of Munich in the Bavarian Alps. The following years, he spent a lot of time there and derived his inspiration from the landscape and lighting atmosphere for numerous paintings, which often show Lake Walchen.

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The song »Fly Me To The Moon«

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The jazz classic »Fly Me To The Moon«, originally written by Bart Howard in 1954, gained worldwide fame through Frank Sinatra (1915–1998). His version from 1964 accompanied the space mission Apollo 10 to the Moon in May of 1969, and was played when the spaceship orbited the Moon. Further, it was the first song ever that was played on the Moon, when Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon with a portable cassette player during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

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»The Woman of the Apocalypse« and the Moon

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»The Woman of the Apocalypse« is a depiction of a Virgin Mary that is surrounded by sunrays (hence she is also called sun-crowned Madonna), and shows a moon crescent underneath her feet. Quite often stars can also be seen around her head. This portrait goes back to the biblical text »The Woman and the Dragon« in the Revelation of John, chapter 12. This describes the fight of heaven against the red dragon that embodies the evil in the world.

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“Tsukimi”: Moon-viewing in Japan

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Japan has a custom, which is called “Tsukimi” or also “Otsukimi” that literally means “moon-viewing” (tsuki = jap. Moon). This tradition dates back to the Heian period (794–1192) where Japanese culture and the arts were refined to a high degree. At that time, elements of the Chinese “Mid-Autumn Moon Festival” were introduced in Japan, and festivals and rituals were held in the eighth sun month (which corresponds to September in our current calendar).

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The moonlight in “How to Train Your Dragon”

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The film is based on the book of the same title by Cressida Cowell (2003), was released in 2010 in movie theaters and became one of the most successful animations and earned nearly $500 million. Next to its impressive technical quality of the animation, it is most of all about the story of Hickup, a son of a Viking, who flies directly into the hearts of the audience, with his ability to tame dragons, which was a hostile skill to have up until then.

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