degrees and minutes????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Question

How many kms (kilometres) are there in
1 Degree
2 Minute(')
3 Second(")

Answer 1

First, how many km in the circumference of the earth?
Let's use 40,000 km, see the linked reference

A degree is circumference divided by 360. 40,000/360 = you do the math

A minute is the above answer divided by 60.

A second is the former answer divided by 60.

You do the math and impress your classmates.

Answer 2

it was initially set,(this is by definition, and how the metric system originates), for the distance from equator to the poles to be exactly 10,000km. therefore, pole to equator is 90 degrees. so we get the following:
1 degree - 111.111 km
1minute - 1.851 km
1 second - 030309 km, or 30.3 m

imin2this had a good web reference for there, but that is only half of it...

PLEASE NOTE... this is only accurate for degrees of latitude. (going north or south from 1 latitude to another)

When measuring distances between LONGITUDES (re going from east to west) a degree (second, minute) difference will only be as accurate as the above numbers AT THE EQUATOR.

Because of the earths surface being round, and all of the longitude lines converging at the poles, then starting from the equator, the higher degrees of latitude you go (toward poles), the CLOSER the above distances are going to be between lines of longitude.

how do you figure that out?? here is a simple formula

COS (latitude) X 111.1km

so if you are at equator, the COS of 0 degrees is 1, so a degree longitude is 111.1km

if you are say 45 degrees, such as in U.S., then COS (45deg) is 0.707...
multiply that by the 111.1km mentioned above, and you get 78.5 km for every degree difference in longitude (going east to west)

then to confirm this simple formula, lets go to north pole (im talking true north, not magnetic, which can change but that is a whole new issue.
poles are at 90.
so... COS 90 degrees is... 0, times the 111.1km is still ZERO. because all degrees of longitude meet at that point.


hope that answers your question.
10 points would be cool...
now you also know the origination of our metric system as well... equator to pole.... divided by 10,000 is how we get the infamous METER :-)

Answer 3

There are 360 degrees in a circle. There are 60 minutes in a degree. There are 60 seconds in a minute. There are other ways of looking at a circle. The best way is radians. There are pi (3.14159...) radians in a circle. In order to determine how many kilometers there are in a (degree, minute, second) you have to know how many kilometers are in the radius of that circle.

Answer 4

If you are asking for earth then the answers are:

Degree: 111.1 Km (in latitudes)
Minute: 1.815 Km
second: 0.03086 Km
remember for longitudes it will differ at every latitude and its 0 at 90 degree latitudes.

Answer 5

If you're talking about latitude and longitude, it's different depending on where you are on earth. Given two locations' latitude and longitude, you can compute the distance between them with this geodetic calculator:

http://www.libertyk12.org/highschool/academics/sci/geodetic/geodetic.html