Steem Geography facts 1: Lines on the Globe

📡Today with mobile phones, satellites in orbit, and Google Maps, we can see just where we are on the earth and how to get somewhere. All of this is self-evident to us, but bear in mind that as a species, we arrived at this point around the day before yesterday.

(Just think, before 1500, the inhabitants of Europe DID NOT EVEN KNOW THAT AMERICA EXISTED.)

✨Many CENTURIES have passed after curious explorers used different techniques such as the direction of the sun and the constellations for travel orientation and mapping!

🔺Finally, in 1600, the "Cartesian Coordinate System" was created. It is a method that everybody accepts and understands for determining where anything is concerning two perpendicular axes. it is a popular method of separating the world into sections in order to interact with each other.

🌟HOW DOES IT WORK?🌟

♟️ ♟️Imagine a chessboard: each box has a tag, such as B7, D3, and so on. (A photo of this is included in the comments.) These names appear on both the horizontal and vertical sides, with the letters on the horizontal and the numbers on the vertical! This is how the coordinates system works.

🤔What is the point of all of this?

🐟 It would be awkward to be the captain of a ship in the middle of the ocean, to be asked "Where are you?" and to answer, "I can see land far away from here, and there are fish around here, and the sun is just behind us right now, do you understand where we are?"

Image taken from wikimedia and edited by me

`🌐The scientists of the time relied on the Cartesian Coordinate System to separate the huge earth and interact with one another. As you might be aware, the Earth is split along different imaginary lines, both parallel and vertical.

👇The vertical lines that begin at one pole and end at the other are referred to as Meridians. The famed Greenwich Observatory, from where many experiments were conducted for many years and which was a central point for travelers, is passed by the "First Meridian."

`👉It is the reference point for the other meridians, so it is at 0 degrees. The meridians also help us identify time zones, but we'll go over that again later.

Short break for SIMPLE geometry - do not be scared!

⭕ How many degrees does a circle have? 360.

🖖 If we divide it exactly in the middle, we are left with two semicircles of 180 degrees.

🌎 This is exactly what the first Meridian does! It is the line that divides the earth into two parts: 180 degrees west (western hemisphere), and 180 degrees east (eastern hemisphere).

✨Let's see what happens with the other lines - THE PARALLELS!

🌍Equator is the most popular parallel - and, once again, a point of reference.

The Equator is also at 0 degrees and travels across the "wider" portion of the planet. It separates the Earth's hemispheres into the northern and southern hemispheres.

✨ALSO✨

💍There are four more known similarities. Consider them to be circles above and below Ecuador.

The Tropic of Cancer is located about 23.5 degrees north of Ecuador, and the Tropic of Capricorn is located about 23.5 degrees south of Ecuador.

🤔 There are two logical questions here: why are they 23.5 degrees, and why are they called that?

🌞I don't want to confuse you too much, so I'll tell you that the number 23.5 comes from the amount of sunlight obtained at that point in the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) concerning the inclination of the Earth's axis.

About Cancer and Capricorn, they are not only zodiac signs that we should generally avoid(JOKE), they are STARS. The Sun was in a specific position relative to the respective constellations when scientists produced each of these imaginary lines (around 2000 years ago).

Finally, there are two more parallels: the "Arctic Circle" and the "Antarctic Circle." I'll leave it to you to figure out where they are.

If you've made it this far, I'd like to ask you to consider five things in your everyday life that you take for granted, and ask yourself if they've always been that way!

The fact that today, anyone with a mobile phone and access to the internet can log into Google Maps, enter an address, and get directions on how to get there is Amazing progress!

It's inconceivable that we can now easily zoom in and out on a digital globe! Consider saying this to an ancient Greek scientist who studied the night sky and took notes in order to create a method to help him understand his estimated geographical location in the world.

😮Imagine saying about Google Maps to seafarers of 1400 who had to cross entire stormy (or even serene) oceans for MONTHS, to measure distances!