#mosaic

#mosaic

Archaeologists Revealed Massive Intricate Mosaic Floor Made from 5 Million Pieces of Stone in the Hisham Palace in JerichoThe Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry revealed one of the largest and most important mosaics in the world. The mosaic dated back to the Umayyad period and the palace was thought to be built by the Umayyad caliph Hisham bin Abd al-Malik between 724 and 743 C.E., but experts today believed that his nephew al-Walid II actually was the one who built the palace. When the site was discovered in 1873, British archaeologist Robert Hamilton performed the first excavation.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 competition have just been announced. The annual astronomy photography competition, now in its 13th year, is hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and drew more than 4,500 entries, including many featuring images of distant galaxies that require the use of powerful telescopes.The overall winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 was Shuchang Dong who took this deceptively simple photo of a solar eclipse titled "The Golden Ring" shown above. Dong took the photo in the Ali region of Tibet on June 21, 2020."This place has year-round sunny weather, but in front of the annular eclipse, I saw dark clouds all over the sky," Dong said, "We were waiting with anxious minds but we were lucky. Within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine penetrated through the clouds and afterwards the Sun was sucked into the thick clouds.""This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event," noted competition judge Emily Drabek-Maunder, "Our sun can still be seen as a ring circling the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun, and mountains on the lunar surface can be seen hiding some of this light on the lower righthand portion of the image. This is a stunning achievement!"View more of the fantastic photos of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition below.#astronomy #photography #AstronomyPhotographeroftheYear #ShuchangDong #sun #solareclipse