Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Amanda Briney. Geography Expert. Amanda Briney, M. Updated January 30, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Briney, Amanda. The Geography of Earth's Equator. Geodesy and the Size and Shape of the Planet Earth.
Understanding the Earth's Two North Poles. An imaginary circle around the earth, equally distant at all points from both the North and South Poles: it divides the earth's surface into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. A similar great circle on any sphere , especially on a celestial body, or on other reasonably symmetrical three-dimensional body.
A short form of the celestial equator. A circle like this around any celestial body. A similar circle on the surface of any celestial body. It also takes less energy to launch when the spinning Earth is already giving the satellite a push of 1, kilometers per hour 1, miles per hour.
The United States launches most spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in southern Florida, as close to the Equator as possible in the continental U. Recently, mobile launch platforms, such as Ocean Odyssey , have successfully launched satellites into orbit from the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Equatorial Climates Twice a year, during the spring and autumn equinox es, the sun passes directly over the Equator. Even during the rest of the year, equatorial regions often experience a hot climate with little seasonal variation.
As a result, many equatorial culture s recognize two season s—wet and dry. The wet, or rainy, season often lasts most of the year.
The long, warm, rainy season creates tropical rain forests. Some of the most expansive rain forest s in the world are in equatorial regions: the Amazon rain forest of South America, the Congo rain forest of Central Africa, and the varied Southeast Asian rainforest stretching from India to Vietnam.
Humid weather means that equatorial regions are not the hottest in the world, even though they are among the closest to the sun. The water in the equatorial air cools it slightly.
Many cultures thrive in warm equatorial regions. The Fang people of Gabon, for instance, are successful farmers who take advantage of the warm temperature and long rainy season to cultivate crop s such as corn, yams, and plantains. The Fang also raise livestock that have adapted to the climate, such as goats and chickens. Not all equatorial regions are hot and humid, however.
Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, is only kilometers miles from the Equator, but its elevation creates a climate with cool, dry weather and even alpine glacier s. The Andes are another equatorial region lacking the hot, humid climate often associated with the Equator. The mountain range includes a desert with almost no rain the Atacama , as well as some of the tallest peaks on Earth.
Here, too, cultures have thrived for thousands of years. The Aymara people of the Altiplano of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, are primarily an urban people who identify strongly with the innovative navigation al successes of their ancestors. In the 20th century, the Aymara helped build railroads through the high, equatorial Andes. Many plant and animal species thrive in equatorial climates. The Amazon and Congo rain forest ecosystem s, for example, are amazingly rich in biodiversity.
A single hectare 2. The equatorial savanna of Kenya includes mammals such as lions, cheetahs, and elephants. The chilly equatorial Andes are famous for its camelid species: llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos. Earth's equatorial bulge pushes Mount Chimborazo, near the Equator in the Ecuadorian Andes, further from the center of the Earth.
Yasuni Natonal Park, where the equator meets the Andes, is famed for its fabulous variety of plants and animals. An orbit near the equator was important for a variety of reasons. Those storms kicked up in the collision zone around the equator spin westward off the coast of Cape Verde.
And yet the trees are cultivated in every country within 15 degrees of the Equator , so a virtual cocoa belt encircles the globe.
It is about three leagues wide and is forty-four and one half degrees from the Equator. The difference in the length of day and night decreases more and more the nearer you approach the Equator. It was of a cylindrical shape, having a deep zone at the equator , and a containing capacity of about feet.
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