What is the latitude and longitude of the prime meridian?
There are different ways of expressing longitude and latitude values. The system we will work with the most encodes longitude from -180° in the middle of the Pacific to 0° at the Prime Meridian, which runs through Greenwich, England and back to 180° in the middle of the Pacific.
What is the purpose of the prime meridian?
The prime meridian is the line of 0 longitude, the starting point for measuring distance both east and west around the Earth. The prime meridian is arbitrary, meaning it could be chosen to be anywhere. Any line of longitude (a meridian) can serve as the 0 longitude line.
What is an example of prime meridian?
- Longitude moved east and west from the prime meridian.
- Following Hipparchus he divided the equator into 360 drawing his prime meridian through the Fortunate Islands (Canaries).
- The 1884 International Prime Meridian Conference established an international standard time system.
What does prime meridian mean in geography?
The prime meridians of the following planetographic systems have been defined:
- Two different heliographic coordinate systems are used on the Sun. ...
- In 1975 the prime meridian of Mercury was defined to be 20° east of the crater Hun Kal.
- Defined in 1992, the prime meridian of Venus passes through the central peak in the crater Ariadne.
Is prime meridian a longitude?
51.4780° N, 0.0015° WPrime Meridian / Coordinates
Where is 0 0 longitude and latitude?
Null Island is the point on the Earth's surface at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude ( 0°N 0°E), i.e., where the prime meridian and the equator intersect. Null Island is located in international waters in the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 600 km off the coast of West Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea.
Where is the 0 line of longitude?
Greenwich, EnglandThe distance around the Earth measures 360 degrees. The meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, is internationally accepted as the line of 0 degrees longitude, or prime meridian.
Where does the prime meridian run through at 0 degrees longitude?
Greenwich, EnglandAny line of longitude (a meridian) can serve as the 0 longitude line. However, there is an international agreement that the meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, is considered the official prime meridian.
What is 0 latitude called?
The EquatorThe Equator is the line of 0 degrees latitude. Each parallel measures one degree north or south of the Equator, with 90 degrees north of the Equator and 90 degrees south of the Equator. The latitude of the North Pole is 90 degrees N, and the latitude of the South Pole is 90 degrees S.
What is 0 degrees latitude also known as?
Zero degrees latitude is the line designating the Equator and divides the Earth into two equal hemispheres (north and south). The Equator is the line of zero degrees latitude around the middle of Earth. Image: NASA, public domain. Zero degrees longitude is an imaginary line known as the Prime Meridian.
Why is Greenwich the prime meridian?
There were two main reasons for the choice. The first was the fact that the USA had already chosen Greenwich as the basis for its own national time zone system. The second was that in the late 19th century, 72% of the world's commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian.
Why is the prime meridian called the Greenwich meridian?
Greenwich meridian, also called prime meridian, an imaginary line, last established in 1851, that was used to indicate 0° longitude. It passes through Greenwich, a borough of London, and terminates at the North and South poles. Because it indicated 0° longitude, it was also known as the prime meridian.
Is prime meridian and Greenwich meridian the same?
The Greenwich Meridian became the international standard for the prime meridian. The prime meridian also sets Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Does the Rose line exist?
Polished up for a supporting role in the film version of The Da Vinci Code, they played the fictional Rose Line. After that, Dan Brown's fans sought them out. They even looked for them at the Church of St. Sulpice, which figures in The Da Vinci Code but is not on the Paris Meridian.
Why is it called Greenwich Mean Time?
What does GMT mean? Greenwich Mean Time is the yearly average (or 'mean') of the time each day when the Sun crosses the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Essentially, mean time is clock time rather than solar (astronomical) time.
What is the prime meridian?
0°. Prime Meridian. A prime meridian is the meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great circle. This great circle divides a spheroid into two hemispheres.
How are prime meridians determined?
For celestial objects that are tidally locked (more specifically, synchronous), however, their prime meridians are determined by the face always inward of the orbit (a planet facing its star, or a moon facing its planet), just as equators are determined by rotation.
What is the IERS reference meridian?
The new techniques resulted in the IERS Reference Meridian, the plane of which passes through the centre of mass of the Earth. This differs from the plane established by the Airy transit, which is affected by vertical deflection (the local vertical is affected by influences such as nearby mountains). The change from relying on the local vertical to using a meridian based on the centre of the Earth caused the modern prime meridian to be 5.3″ east of the astronomic Greenwich prime meridian through the Airy Transit Circle. At the latitude of Greenwich, this amounts to 102 metres. This was officially accepted by the Bureau International de l'Heure (BIH) in 1984 via its BTS84 (BIH Terrestrial System) that later became WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) and the various ITRFs (International Terrestrial Reference Systems).
What is the most widely used meridian?
The most widely used modern meridian is the IERS Reference Meridian. It is derived but deviates slightly from the Greenwich Meridian, which was selected as an international standard in 1884. Longitudes for the Earth and Moon are measured from their prime meridian at 0° to 180° east and to 180° west.
What is the longitude of the solar system?
For all other Solar System bodies, longitude is measured from 0° (their prime meridian) to 360°. West longitudes are used if the rotation of the body is direct, that is, it follows the right hand rule. East longitudes are used if the rotation is retrograde.
When was the Greenwich Meridian chosen?
In October 1884 the Greenwich Meridian was selected by delegates (forty-one delegates representing twenty-five nations ) to the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, D.C., United States to be the common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world. The modern prime meridian, the IERS Reference Meridian, is placed very near this meridian and is the prime meridian that currently has the widest use.
When did the Greenwich Meridian become the prime meridian?
In 1884, at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., 22 countries voted to adopt the Greenwich meridian as the prime meridian of the world. The French argued for a neutral line, mentioning the Azores and the Bering Strait, but eventually abstained and continued to use the Paris meridian until 1911.
What is the prime meridian?
The prime meridian is the line drawn north to south at 0° (0 degrees) longitude. Credits: NASA. an imaginary line on Earth that passes north to south through the Greenwich Observatory in London, England.
Which hemisphere does the prime meridian divide Earth into?
Sentences: The prime meridian divides Earth into the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere.
Where is the coordinate of 0 degrees longitude?
It is by pure coincidence that the coordinate of 0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude falls in the middle of a little-known body of water. To be exact, the intersection of zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude falls about 380 miles south of Ghana and 670 miles west of Gabon. 1 This location is in the tropical waters ...
What is the equator?
The equator is an important line on the earth's surface. It marks the line above which the sun is directly overhead on the March and September equinoxes. The prime meridian, being an imaginary line, created by people to mark zero degrees longitude, could have been located anywhere. Therefore, the intersection of zero degrees longitude ...
Where is the Gulf of Guinea?
The Gulf of Guinea is part of the western edge of the African tectonic plate. Most notably, according to the theory of continental drift, this may have been the location where South America and Africa were once joined.
Is the equator a real location?
Though invisible, the equator (0 degrees latitude) is a very real location that divides the world into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The prime meridian (0 degrees longitude), on the other hand, was created by scholars who needed some point as a frame of reference to begin noting east-west points on the map.
Which line of latitude is the starting point for the Prime Meridian?
While the equator is obviously the starting point for lines of latitude, the Prime Meridian's location had to be chosen. At the time of the conference, each country had their own line of longitude that they considered to be the meridian line, or starting line from which longitude was measured.
When was the prime meridian established?
At the time, railroads had become a major mode of transportation in the United States and Canada. In 1883, the two nations established a standard time system for North America to make railroad travel more dependable.
What is the latitude and longitude of the equator?
All lines of latitude and longitude are measured in degrees. As the base line for parallels, the equator is considered to be 0 degrees latitude. Going north or south, latitude lines increase in degrees until we get to 90 degrees north at the North Pole and 90 degrees south at the South Pole.
What is the line that runs horizontally around the globe?
Lines of latitude run horizontally around the globe and define how far north or south a location is from the equator; the equator is an imaginary line that is equidistant from both the North and South Poles that divides the Earth into northern and southern hemispheres. The geographic grid of Earth.
Why is the equator considered a longitude?
The Prime Meridian, as it passes through Greenwich, England, is considered 0 degrees longitude. Because both the equator and the Prime Meridian are imaginary lines, they were both established by mankind at some point in human history. The equator was easy to decide because it's exactly between the North and South Poles.
What is the line of longitude?
Lines of Longitude define how far east or west a location is from the Prime Meridian, the focus of this lesson. The Prime Meridian is an imaginary line that, similar to the equator, divides the earth into eastern and western hemispheres. It is sometimes referred to as the Greenwich Meridian. All lines of latitude and longitude are measured in ...
Which imaginary line divides the Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres?
While the equator is the imaginary line that divides the Earth into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the Prime Meridian is an imaginary line that divides the Earth into Eastern and Western hemispheres.
What are the lines of longitude called?
lines of longitude are known as meridians . Any place has two coordinates: its latitude (north or south of the Equator) and its longitude (east or west of the Prime Meridian) the Prime Meridian runs through Greenwich, London, UK. It is also known as the Greenwich meridian and it is the basis of the standard time zone system.
Who was the first astronomer to determine the differences in longitude?
Hipparchos was the first astronomer to determine the differences in longitude. Ptolemy, following the Marinus of Tyre, adopted a meridian through the Canary Islands, which marked the western boundary of the world, whereas, to the east, there seemed to be no such boundary.
What did France say about the Greenwich Meridian?
France said that if the British were to accept the metric system, then they would accept the Greenwich Meridian.
When ships exchange longitudes at sea, should they be based on Greenwich?
It was also recommended that, whenever ships exchanged longitudes at sea, they should be based on Greenwich. This did not apply to land maps and coastal charts, these should keep its own prime meridian. However, the 2nd IGC in Rome in 1875 discussed the whole matter again without coming to any further conclusions.
Is the Greenwich Meridian a common zero?
The view expressed was that for passage charts for all nations, not necessarily coastal or harbour charts, the Greenwich Meridian should be adopted as the common zero for longitude, and that this should become obligatory within fifteen years.
Overview
A prime meridian is the meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great circle. This great circle divides a spheroid into two hemispheres. If one uses directions of East and West from a defined prime meridian, then they can be called the Eastern H…
History
The notion of longitude for Greeks was developed by the Greek Eratosthenes (c. 276 – 195 BCE) in Alexandria, and Hipparchus (c. 190 – 120 BCE) in Rhodes, and applied to a large number of cities by the geographer Strabo (64/63 BCE – c. 24 CE). But it was Ptolemy (c. 90 – 168 CE) who first used a consistent meridian for a world map in his Geographia.
Ptolemy used as his basis the "Fortunate Isles", a group of islands in the Atlantic, which are usua…
International prime meridian
Since 1984, the international standard for the Earth's prime meridian is the IERS Reference Merdian. Between 1884 and 1984, the meridian of Greenwich was the world standard. These meridians are physically very close to each other.
In October 1884 the Greenwich Meridian was selected by delegates (forty-one delegates representing twenty-five nations) to the International Meridian Confe…
Prime meridian on other planetary bodies
As on the Earth, prime meridians must be arbitrarily defined. Often a landmark such as a crater is used; other times a prime meridian is defined by reference to another celestial object, or by magnetic fields. The prime meridians of the following planetographic systems have been defined:
• Two different heliographic coordinate systems are used on the Sun. The first is the Carrington heliographic coordinate system. In this system, the prime meridian passes through the center o…
See also
• 1st meridian east – Meridian 1° east of Greenwich
• 1st meridian west – Meridian 1° west of Greenwich
• 180th meridian – Meridian 180° east or west of the Prime Meridian with which it forms a great circle
Works cited
• Burgess, Ebenezer (1860), "Translation of the Surya-Siddhanta", Journal of the American Oriental Society (e-book), vol. 6 (published 2013), p. 185
• Dolan, Graham (2013a). "The Greenwich Meridian before the Airy Transit Circle". The Greenwich Meridian.
• Dolan, Graham (2013b). "WGS84 and the Greenwich Meridian". The Greenwich Meridian.
External links
• "Where the Earth's surface begins—and ends", Popular Mechanics, December 1930
• scanned TIFFs of the conference proceedings
• Prime meridians in use in the 1880s, by country
Location of 0 Latitude, 0 Longitude
What Marks 0 Degrees Latitude, 0 Degrees longitude?
- Very few people in the world will ever pass over the point where the equator and prime meridian meet. It requires a boat and a good navigator, so, unlike the prime meridian line in Greenwich, there is not much call for tourism at this location. The spot is marked, though: aweather buoy (Station 13010—Soul)is placed at the exact location of 0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude. I…
Is This Intersection Important?
- The equator is an important line on the earth's surface. It marks the line above which the sun is directly overhead on the March and September equinoxes. The prime meridian, being an imaginary line, created by people to mark zero degrees longitude, could have been located anywhere. Therefore, the intersection of zero degrees longitude and zero degr...
Additional References
- US Department of Commerce, et al.“NDBC Station Page.”NDBC, 8 Nov. 1996.
- “Natural Earth Version 1.3 Release Notes: Natural Earth.”Natural Earth Title, 2011.