The parallels are smaller circles, than parallels are arranged to the equator, the north and the south of this one. The equator is the great circle course, with East-West direction that divides to the Earth in two halves, the North hemisphere and the South hemisphere. The most important parallels are: the Arctic Circles and Antártico, the tropical of Cancer and Capricorn and the equator. A meridian is an imaginary line that unites pole with pole. One forms by the union of all the points, in which the Sun marks the same solar time. They are not, then, great circle courses, but half of a great circle course: semicircles. From 1884, conventionally, the meridian 0º is the one that passs by Greenwich. Thanks to these imaginary lines we can locate any point on the Earth. For it we only must give to its latitude and its length.
We called length to the angular distance of an Earth point, to the East or the West, with respect to the meridian 0º. Conventionally the meridian 0º is the one that passs by Greenwich (from 1884). In order to know the length a point we must know when it is noon in meridian zero and cronometrar the time of difference with the local noon. That difference divided between 4 gives the length us.
The length gives the hour. In a rotation, the Earth crosses the 360 degrees of a circumference, according to the sexagesimal system. In making that route it takes, conventionally, 24 hours. This means that hourly it crosses 15 degrees and every four minutes a degree. A time zone is the 15 degrees that include to the East and the West of meridians zero, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 135, 150, 165 and 180. As these meridians are those that are in center of the bobbin are 7.5 degrees to the East and 7.5 degrees to the West of the central meridian. Three types of hour exist: the solar time (local), that is the one that marks the incidence of the sun in each meridian; mean time (GMT: Zulu time), that is the one that marks dazzling means of the corresponding time zone; and the hour of reference that is the one that marks the Government of a country for its use, and that can be advanced or slow with respect to the GMT. In the poles, to being a space inhabited and submissive the legislation of a country standard time does not exist. The expeditionary ones use the hour of reference of the country with that they are related to receive provisions, or with that communicate their situation. However, every day is used plus the universal time coordinated (UTC) or zulú hour, that is the hour of the meridian of Greenwich. We do not forget that the time zones were created at the end of century XIX indeed to coordinate the schedules of the new systems of transport (trains), as much within a same country as between countries. Before this each city it had its corresponding solar time.
We called latitude to the angular distance between an Earth point, North or the South, and the equator. One calculates by astronomical means: taking the height from the sun on the horizon at noon. In the North hemisphere the North point marks the polestar to it, and in the South hemisphere the South point is establishing the position de la Cruz of the South. Also the latitude of a place can be calculated taking like reference these points.
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