How Do Astronomers Define Latitude & Longitude on Other Planets

How Do Astronomers Define Latitude & Longitude on Other Planets

Channel:
United States Scott Manley
Subscribers:
1,780,000
Published on ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9oMxRo5uVM


Duration: 10:19
126,985 views
5,768

It took centuries for the people on Earth to decide on a common meridian to measure longitude from, but other planets also need everyone to agree about the origins of their mapping systems. In the case of the terrestrial planets a single bright spot was chosen in the early stages of exploration, and as maps improved the exact location is defined with increasing accuracy. For tidally locked moons the meridian is defined based on orientation relative to the parent body, but even then there's a lot of room for improvement as data improves.
Finally some bodies are just not suited to spherical coordinated, because they're not particularly spherical.



Other Videos By Scott Manley


2019-10-25The Moon Trees That Flew To The Moon On Apollo 14
2019-10-23IAC 2019 - Everyone's Going To The Moon - Rocketlab, Blue Origin, SpaceX
2019-10-21Why NASA's SOFIA Telescope On A Plane is "Perfectly Balanced"
2019-10-18What Makes NASA's Artemis Space Suit The Best Space Suit Yet?
2019-10-15Why The Juno Spacecraft is Afraid of the Dark
2019-10-15The European Space Agency Open Day At ESTEC - Part 4 - Moon Art.
2019-10-13The European Space Agency Open Day At ESTEC - Part 3 - Space Debris
2019-10-12The European Space Agency Open Day At ESTEC - Part 2
2019-10-10The European Space Agency Open Day At ESTEC - Part 1
2019-10-06The Viking Rocket Engine - Ariane's First Engine & Ancestor to ISRO's Vikas Engine
2019-10-03How Do Astronomers Define Latitude & Longitude on Other Planets
2019-10-0310 hours of Slowly Rotating Earth
2019-09-29Showcasing SpaceX's Shiny Stainless Starship
2019-09-27The Crazy Plans For Emergency Spacewalks To Save The Space Shuttle
2019-09-24Background video of Earth slowly rotating for 1 Hour.
2019-09-24New Details Revealed About SpaceX's Stainless Steel Starship as Prototype Nears Completion
2019-09-21Views Of Earth and the Seasons From A Million Miles Away - DSCOVR & EPIC
2019-09-20The Most Massive Neutron Star Ever Discovered
2019-09-17What Does "Set SCE To AUX" Mean Anyway - Apollo 12's Lightning Strike Explained
2019-09-12Water Found On Distant 'Super Earth' (or Mini Neptune) AND A New Interstellar Comet!
2019-09-10Watch A Martian Landslide Move Across The Surface of The Red Planet


Tags:
asytronomy
astrogeology
mars
venus
mercury
pluto