Seen from Space 2008
Offshore Wind Farms, Copenhagen, Denmark
This is the Middelgrunden offshore wind farm, which was installed in a 4 to 8m-deep shoal 2 to 3km off the coast and began operation in 2001. This shoal has been used as a dumpsite for harbor sludge and other waste for more than 200 years. The hub of the wind turbine is 64m high, and the diameter of the rotor is 76m, making a total height of 102m. Each wind turbine generates 2MW (megawatts) of power, and the generated power is sent to the land via a 3.5km-long undersea cable. The total generated power is 40MW, over 3% of the electric power consumed in Copenhagen. It is a symbolic facility for Denmark, which has the maximum offshore wind energy capacity in Europe. Copenhagen Energy owns the ten northern turbines, and Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Cooperative owns the ten southern turbines.*1 On the left of the expanded image, you can find seven smaller wind turbines on the bank.
The figure was made by combining an AVNIR-2 image and a backward-looking PRISM image as in Fig. 1. You can thus see the southern sides of buildings, but you will note that there are generally few skyscrapers. At the center of the figure, you can see the Christiansborg Palace, the forerunners of which were a fort constructed in the 12th century and the Copenhagen Castle constructed after that. The Palace is presently used as the House of Parliament. On the southeastern side of the palace, the inner harbor extends in the northeast-southwest direction and connects with the outer harbor in the upper right of the figure. The island on the opposite shore across the inner harbor is Christianshavn, a fortress constructed for metropolitan defense in the 17th century. Stadsgraven (City Ponds), constructed as the outer moats, forms an arc on the southeastern side of Christianshavn. Stadsgraven consists of the wider moats and the narrower moat, and some bastions protrude into the wider moats, making it look like a huge double cogwheel. The trace in the outer moats on the northwestern side can be seen near the National Gallery north of the Christiansborg Palace. The rectangular lakes stand in line on the outside of the outer moats. On the west side of the Christiansborg Palace are the National Museum; Copenhagen City Hall; Tivoli Park, which is an amusement park opened in 1843; and Copenhagen Central Station. On the north side of the palace, Stro̸get, which is the largest shopping street in Scandinavia for pedestrians, extends in the east-west direction. To the northeast are the Royal Theater that has a history of more than 250 years, and Nyhavn where colorful wooden buildings stand in a row along a canal. To the north of the Christiansborg Palace, you can see the Rosenborg Castle that was built as a detached palace in the summer at the beginning of the 17th century and is currently open to the public as the royal family museum. To the northeast of the Christiansborg Palace is the Amalienborg Palace, which has been used as the residential castle of the Danish royal family since 1794. The Kastellet, which was constructed in the 17th century with a star moat, can be seen to the north of the Amalienborg Palace. When the British fleet shelled Copenhagen in 1807 following the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, this fortress was used as the defense line, but it was powerless when confronted with the longer range of the improved British guns. Japanese people are familiar with Goryokaku star moat, which was constructed in Hakodate, Japan in the last years of the Edo period of the middle 19th century, but it was no match for the bombardment from fighting ships of the new government army in the Hakodate War from 1868 to 1869. The Little Mermaid, named after the fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen (1805 to 1875), lies on the seashore near the Kastellet. On the opposite shore of the Amalienborg Palace across the inner harbor, the Copenhagen Opera House, which was opened in January 2005, appears as a white rectangle. The Royal Danish Playhouse, which was just opened in February of this year (2008), can be seen in black on the southwest of the Opera House. These facilities were built as the part of the redevelopment project in Copenhagen. At the top of the figure, you can see Parken Stadion, the home ground of F.C. Copenhagen, which belongs to the Danish professional soccer league "Superliga" and is also the home ground of the Danish national soccer team. To the south of Parken Stadion, you can find the Niels Bohr Institute that was administrated by the theoretical physicist Niels Bohr (1885 to 1962) who played a leading role in developing quantum mechanics, one of the two pillars of modern physics (the other is the theory of relativity). On the shore of Skt. Jo̸rgens SE(Lake) on the left of the figure is Tycho Brahe Planetarium, which was opened in 1989. Tycho Brahe (1546 to 1601) was a Danish astronomer who left a huge volume of astronomical observation records and laid the foundation for deriving Kepler’s laws. Tycho crater on the Moon is named after Tycho Brahe. A campus of the University of Copenhagen can be found at the bottom of the figure.
The land in the upper and lower right of the figure is part of Sweden and the Scandinavian Peninsula. Part of MalmE Sweden, can be seen in the lower right. Between Copenhagen and MalmE you can see the 7,845m-long O̸resund Bridge that was opened in July 2000. In the expanded image, two main towers can be seen at the center of the bridge as well as a ship about to pass under the bridge just to the north. MalmEand Copenhagen are linked by the 4,055m-long artificial Peberholm (Pepper Islet) and a 4,050m-long undersea tunnel (the submarine part is 3,510m long). Peberholm was named after the natural islet Saltholm (Salt Islet) just to the north.
|