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Longitude, the Prime Meridian [1] Any axis about which an object spins is an imaginary line. Mason–Dixon line, which informally marks pieces of the borders of four U.S. states: Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, once part of Virginia. Symbolically, the line separates the Northern United States from the Southern United States
The imaginary line around which Earth spins, which goes between the North Pole and South Pole, is tilted about 23° from the oval that describes its orbit around the Sun. Earth always points in the same direction as it moves around the Sun, so for half the year (summer in the Northern Hemisphere), the North Pole is pointed slightly toward the ...
This is slightly above the snow line and is the only place on the equator where snow lies on the ground. At the equator, the snow line is around 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) lower than on Mount Everest and as much as 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) lower than the highest snow line in the world, near the Tropic of Capricorn on Llullaillaco.
Meridians are imaginary semicircular lines running from pole to pole that connect points with the same longitude. The prime meridian defines 0° longitude; by convention the International Reference Meridian for the Earth passes near the Royal Observatory in Greenwich , south-east London on the island of Great Britain .
The division of Earth by the Equator and the prime meridian Map roughly depicting the Eastern and Western hemispheres. In geography and cartography, hemispheres of Earth are any division of the globe into two equal halves (hemispheres), typically divided into northern and southern halves by the Equator and into western and eastern halves by the Prime meridian.
The Mercator projection of a world map. The angles are untrue for area, especially at high latitudes. Also note increasing distances between the latitudes towards the poles and the parallel lines of longitude. The only true world map is the globe. The Mercator projection comes from a globe inside a cylinder.
Certain reference lines and planes on Earth, when projected onto the celestial sphere, form the bases of the reference systems. These include the Earth's equator , axis , and orbit . At their intersections with the celestial sphere, these form the celestial equator , the north and south celestial poles , and the ecliptic , respectively. [ 8 ]
Medieval artistic representation of a spherical Earth – with compartments representing earth, air, and water (c. 1400) The Erdapfel, the oldest surviving terrestrial globe (1492/1493) The spherical shape of the Earth was known and measured by astronomers, mathematicians, and navigators from a variety of literate ancient cultures, including ...