Overview
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Latitude, Longitude, and Maps
For this week’s topic, I found a NOAA article about latitude and longitude. I thought it was interesting because we use coordinates all the time, especially with GPS, but I never really thought about how they actually work. Latitude tells us how far north or south we are from the equator, while longitude tells us how far east or west we are from the Prime Meridian. (National Ocean Service)
I also learned that maps are not always a perfect representation of Earth. Since Earth is basically a giant 3D sphere and maps are flat, some amount of distortion happens. Different map projections are used depending on what the map is needed for. For example, the Mercator projection is useful for ocean navigation because directions can be shown clearly, but it can make areas near the poles look much larger than they really are. (National Ocean Service)
I thought this was pretty cool because something as simple as looking at a map it actually involves a lot of science and math. It definitely makes me look at GPS and maps a little differently now!
Source: NOAA, What are latitude and longitude?