Geodesics and how someone can end up in New Orleans by traveling East from the westernmost point in Alaska?
In: Planetary Science
If you do not do that you end up at a point on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico about 300 km east of New Orleans, 68 km east of the border with Texas.
It is also the westernmost point in Alaska not the westernmost point of Alaska, that point is on Attu island and the same path puts you west of California out in the ocean, the shortest distance to land is about 580km. If you say the westernmost point is the one closest to the 180-degree latitude but east of the line you end up on another island in the Aleutian Islands. A line from it will be west of the line from Attua
The confusing part is that you only travel due east (90 degrees) at the starting point, and you travel at 152 degrees at the end, If you travel due east all the time you end up at Husdons Bay where Southampton Island is. Due east all the time is a curved ling on Earth’s surface unless you start at the equator.
A straight line on the earth’s surface is a great circle, that is a circle you draw on earth where the center is at the center of the earth,. Put a rubber band on a globe and stretch it so it is straight all the time so it does not slip off, you have now created a great circle, create one that starts due east at that point and you end up close to the Mississippi-Texas border.
A great circle round like that will go around Earth and you end up where you started, It will go over South America, and pass a bit north of Antarctica. It passes over China and Russia before you end up where you started. You will see the part with just a rubber band and a globe.
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