Butterfly

Metamorphosis is a process of a caterpillar to become a new animal (perfect

stage), in this case is a butterfly. The process happens quite simple but takes
quite long time. First, starting from an egg laid by a butterfly on a leaf (usually
leaf of orange tree or other tree), this leaf is aimed to be the food for the
caterpillars until it reaches adulthood when the time comes to become
pupa/cocoon and in some the day it will become a new butterfly.

The egg that laid by a butterfly will hatch in 3-5 days. Then it becomes larva.
The larva will walk to the edge of the leaf of host plant and start eating it. Most
of the larva eat its empty egg shell as a first food. The outer skin of the larva
does not stretch following its growth, but it become very tight when larva will
change its skin. Larva change its skin (molting) for about 4-6 times during its
life.

When the larva reaches the maximum growth, larva will stop eating, walking to
seek the nearest shelter, clinging themselves to a branch or a leaf with woven
yarn. The larva has entered the phase of pre-pupa and for the last time releasing
the skin to form a pupa (cocoon). Pupa usually hard, smooth and in a form of a
structure without any limb. Commonly pupa is green, brown or the color
according to the surroundings (camouflage). The forming of a butterfly in the
pupa usually takes 7-20 days depending on the species.

Once it is out of the pupa, the butterfly will crawl to the top so that the wings
that still weak, crumpled and slightly wet can hang down and inflate normally.
Immediately after the wings are dry, inflate and strong, the wings will open and
close several times and the butterfly will attempt to fly.
 How Chocolate is Made

Have we wondered how we get chocolate from? Well this time we

will enter the amazing world of chocolate so we can understand
exactly we are eating.

Chocolate starts a tree called cacao tree. This tree grows in equatorial
regions, especially in place such as South America, Africa, and
Indonesia. The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small
pine apple. Inside the fruits are the tree’s seeds. They are also known
as coco beans.

Next, the beans are fermented for about a week, dried in the sun. After
that they are shipped to the chocolate maker. The chocolate maker
starts processing by roasting the beans to bring out the flavor.
Different beans from different places have different qualities and
flavor. So they are often shorted and blended to produce a distinctive
mix.

The next process is winnowing. The roasted beans are winnowed to

remove the meat nib of the cacao bean from its shell. Then the nibs
are blended. The blended nibs are grounded to make it liquid. The
liquid is called chocolate liquor. It tastes bitter.

All seeds contain some amount of fat and cacao beans are not
different. However, cacao beans are half fat, which is why they
ground nibs from liquid. It is pure bitter chocolate.
How Does Earthquake Happen?

Earthquake is one of the most destroying natural disasters. Unluckily

it often happens in several regions. Recently a horrible earthquake has
shaken West Sumatra. It has brought great damages. Why did it
occur? Do you know how an earthquake happens?
Earthquakes are usually caused when rock underground suddenly
breaks along a fault. This sudden release of energy causes the seismic
waves. It makes the ground shake. When two blocks of rock or two
plates are rubbing against each other, they stick a little. They don’t
just slide smoothly. The rocks are still pushing against each other, but
not moving. After a while, the rocks break because of all the pressure
that’s built up. When the rocks break, the earthquake occurs.

During the earthquake and afterward, the plates or blocks of rock start
moving, and they continue to move until they get stuck again. The
spot underground where the rock breaks is called the focus of the
earthquake. The place right above the focus is called the epicentre of
the earthquake.
 How Does Rainbow Happen?
Rainbow often appears after the rain stops. Rainbow consists of a big
bow spectrum and happens from water droplets which are reflected in
parallel because of the light of the sun. When the sun is shining and
the light passing through water droplets, we can see a reflection
because of a wide variety of colors. The light passes and reflects like a
light passing through a prism mirror.
Rainbow happen to begin when the sunlight passing through the
raindrops. The light is deflected to the center of the droplets. The
white light is separated from each other into a spectrum of colors. The
colors that have been separated, then separate again into very small
portions. There is more light separated from each other in the
droplets. Finally, those colors form a light curve called rainbow.
On the ground, we only see a maximum of a half circle rainbow.
Because rainbow created involving distance with water droplets, the
rainbow always moves to follow the movement of anyone who seen
it. It makes our distance with rainbow constant, in other word we
could never approach the rainbow.
 Snow

Snow is one of interesting phenomenon when winter comes. Snow

become interesting because the ice crystals are so soft and white like
cotton. Snow just fall in countries that has four seasons or in high
place like Jaya Wijaya mountain in Papua, Indonesia.

Snow begins from water vapor that gathered in the Earth’s

atmosphere. A bunch of water vapor then cools to the point of
condensation (the point at which the gas turns into liquid or solid
form), then coagulates and form clouds. At the beginning of forming
the clouds, its mass is smaller than the mass of the air, so the clouds
float in the air. But, once the water vapor continues to gather in the
clouds, its mass also increases. So, at some point the air can no longer
hold it mass. Then, the clouds broke and the water particles fall to the
earth.

The water particles that fall is pure water (not contaminated by other
particles). The pure water doesn’t freeze directly at the 0 degree of
Celsius to make the pure water freeze required lower temperature than
0 degree of Celsius. However, low temperature doesn’t enough to
form snow. The particles of pure water need to contaminate with
other particles in the air that will make the freezing process faster.
Then, the pure water will turn into ice crystals.

The contaminated particles that involve in this process called

nucleation not only has function to make the freezing process faster
but also to tie the water vapor. So, the water particles (contaminated
one) that gathered with the other water particles will form bigger ice
crystals. These ice crystals that fall to earth which we call snow.
Snow has a unique structure because there is no snow crystal that has
the same shape, just like our fingerprint.