Page 5 - Geografie_Geography_Terra_O_Planeta_In_Miscare
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The movement of Earth around its axis and its consequences
In all its one-year walk, the Earth makes 365 The first consequence is due to centrifugal
pirouettes around its axis. This movement is called force. If you make a clay ball and roll it on a stick,
by rotation (“rotație”) and it lasts almost 24 hours. It you will notice the same transformation as in the
is made from West to East and has as consequences: case of our planet. The formation of days and nights
• Earth flattening at the poles and bulging at the is easily noticeable. For example, in the image the
equator; Sun rises in our country, it will pass through the
• formation of days and nights; South phase, then it will set. In reality, it is the Earth
• time variation across the globe. that through its movement exposes or does not
expose a region to The Sun.
The latter consequence is somewhat more
difficult to understand. For this we will divide the Earth
into 24 time zones, one being traveled every hour. We
will then deform the geographical globe, projecting it
onto a rectangle and get the world map. The minimum
deformation will be in the equatorial zone and the
maximum in the polar one. From North to South, we
traced meridians (“meridianele”) which are imaginary
lines. The most important meridian is Meridian 0.
Conventionally it was established that it would go
through Greenwich near London. If you travel from
there to the west, each time zone will subtract an hour
and if you travel from there to the East, each time zone
will add an hour. It is considered the local time to be 12
o’clock when the Sun is at noon next to that Meridian.
Look at the time zone map and calculate what time it is in New York and Tokyo when it
is 12 a.m!
Meridian 0
M er idi a n 0
a
h
r
es
B
uc
N e w Yo r k Bucharest t
New York
y
o
k
Tokyo
To
