TV or dinner plate?Hehe..





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It's Getting Hot in Here The rocky composition and high surface temperatures on COROT-7b cause rocks to vaporize, only to condense in "rock clouds" at high altitude and rain back down as pebbles.

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The 15th day of the 8th lunar month
The joyous Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, around the time of the autumn equinox（秋分）. Many referred to it simply as the "Fifteenth of the Eighth Moon".

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This day was also considered as a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain had been harvested by this time and food was abundant. Food offerings were placed on an altar set up in the courtyard. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, pomegranates（石榴）, melons, oranges and pomelos（柚子） might be seen. Special foods for the festival included moon cakes, cooked taro（芋头）and water caltrope（菱角）, a type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns. Some people insisted that cooked taro be included because at the time of creation, taro was the first food discovered at night in the moonlight. Of all these foods, it could not be omitted from the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The round moon cakes, measuring about three inches in diameter and one and a half inches in thickness, resembled Western fruitcakes in taste and consistency. These cakes were made with melon seeds（西瓜子）, lotus seeds（莲籽）, almonds（杏仁）, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard（猪油）. A golden yolk（蛋黄） from a salted duck egg was placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust was decorated with symbols of the festival. Traditionally, thirteen moon cakes were piled in a pyramid to symbolize the thirteen moons of a "complete year," that is, twelve moons plus one intercalary（闰月的） moon.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festivity for both the Han and minority nationalities. The custom of worshipping the moon can be traced back as far as the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties (2000 B.C.-1066 B.C.). In the Zhou Dynasty(1066 B.C.-221 B.C.), people hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon whenever the Mid-Autumn Festival sets in. It becomes very prevalent in the Tang Dynasty(618-907 A.D.) that people enjoy and worship the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 A.D.), however, people send round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. When it becomes dark, they look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Since the Ming (1368-1644 A.D. ) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911A.D.), the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration becomes unprecedented popular. Together with the celebration there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense（熏香）, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. However, the custom of playing under the moon is not so popular as it used to be nowadays, but it is not less popular to enjoy the bright silver moon. Whenever the festival sets in, people will look up at the full silver moon, drinking wine to celebrate their happy life or thinking of their relatives and friends far from home, and extending all of their best wishes to them.

Moon Cakes

There is this story about the moon-cake. during the Yuan dynasty (A.D. 1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to the foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each moon cake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attached and overthrew the government. Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend and was called the Moon Cake.

For generations, moon cakes have been made with sweet fillings of nuts, mashed red beans, lotus-seed paste or Chinese dates（枣子）, wrapped in a pastry. Sometimes a cooked egg yolk can be found in the middle of the rich tasting dessert. People compare moon cakes to the plum pudding and fruit cakes which are served in the English holiday seasons.

Nowadays, there are hundreds varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of Moon Festival.

Many years ago，there was a king in China. He was a brave man who did lots of belifits to the people. He admired a beautiful girl and made her stay in the palace so that he could see her whenever he wanted. But，the girl did not like the frightful figure of the king. She seldomly spoke a word in the palace. Each time the king went to her place，he used to show her some treasures and brought some gifts to the girl in order to make her smile and speak.

On every full moon，the girl would burned incenses and wax candles to worship the moon. People believed that there was a god lived in the moon that made the moon shine. Girls who wanted to be a beauty and have a handsome husband should worship the moon.

One day，the full moon of the eighth month，the king brought three herbs pills to show her.

"This is from the priest of the palace. If I eat them up，I can live forever."He exclaimed.

This was the first time the girl stuffs he brought.

He continued，"If you and I both take one，we will both live forever. No one can take you away from me！"

Because the king afraid of the pills would have side effects. He forced the girl to take the pill first. If nothing wrong with her after taking the pill，he would take it immediately. However，the girl recognized that if she took all three of them，the king would left her eventually. Therefore，the first time，she spoke to the king，"Let me have a look of the pills first. Otherwise，I will not try at all."

The king surprisingly the girl talked to him. So，he handed the pills to the girl. She did not say anything but eat all of them. The king was extremely angry. He wanted to kill her.

At this moment，the girl started to fly. She could fly because of the intake of the pills. The king could not catch her，but watched her flew toward the moon and disappeared.

After that，people believed that there was a beautiful girl stay in the moon with a little old man and a bunny. The old man was believed to be the god inside the moon and the bunny was his pet. Day after day，Chinese believed that there were people lived in the moon. Their movement made the dark spot when we looked up to the moon. People used to worship the girl to glorify her chastity. So，on every full moon of the mid-Autumn became a festival in order to memorize her.

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