Earth
As of 2012 the most used prime meridian for the Earth is the IERS Reference Meridian (IRM). It passes about 5.3 arcseconds east of Airy's transit circle or about 102 metres (335 ft) at the latitude of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London. A current convention on the Earth uses the opposite of the IRM as the basis for the International Date Line.
Read more about this topic: Prime Meridian
Famous quotes containing the word earth:
“Man hath still either toys or care:
But hath no root, nor to one place is tied,
But ever restless and irregular,
About this earth doth run and ride.
He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where;
He says it is so far,
That he has quite forgot how to go there.”
—Henry Vaughan (1622–1695)
“If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Oh sure, everyone goes back to the earth at some point, but life itself is a thread that is never broken, never lost. Do you know why? Because each man makes a knot in the thread during his lifetime: it is the work he has done and that’s what gives life to life in the long stretch of time: the usefulness of man on this earth.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)