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What is the other name given to the 0° meridian?
Answer:
Answer by Student
- The other name given to the 0° meridian is the prime meridian .
- It is an imaginary line that passes through Greenwich, a borough of London, and terminates at the North and South poles.
Detailed Explanation by Teachoo
- The other name given to the 0° meridian is the prime meridian because it is the most important line of longitude, or meridian, in a geographic coordinate system. A meridian is an imaginary line that runs north to south, from pole to pole, and intersects at the poles. Longitude is a measure of how far a place is from the prime meridian, in degrees east or west. For example, if a place is at 30°E longitude, it means it is 30 degrees east of the prime meridian. If a place is at 45°W longitude, it means it is 45 degrees west of the prime meridian.
- The prime meridian has a longitude of 0°, which means it is neither east nor west of any other place on Earth . It passes through Greenwich , London , and terminates at the North and South poles. It was established in 1851 by Sir George Biddell Airy, an astronomer royal, who used an instrument called the Airy Transit Circle at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to determine the positions of stars and other celestial objects. The prime meridian was also used as a reference point for time measurement, as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was based on the solar time at this location.
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