If coordinates use minutes and seconds because of the Earth’s rotation, what do they use for other planets and why?

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If coordinates use minutes and seconds because of the Earth’s rotation, what do they use for other planets and why?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

We don’t use minutes and seconds because of earth rotation.

Degrees of an angle are subdivided into minutes and seconds just like hours are. They are unrelated to the rotation of the planet.

The earth turns once in 24 hours but is divided into 360 degrees. There are 15 times as many degrees in a circle as there are hours in a day, so the world turns by 15 arcminutes per minute or 15 arcseconds per second.

The division of a degree in to 60 minutes has the advantage that 60 is divisible by a lot of integers, you can divide a degree into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and get a whole number of minutes. That can be useful.

In modern use the whole minutes and seconds has fallen a bit out of use and decimal subdivision are frequently used. Both are valid.

Coordinate system on other planets like Mars for example follow the same rules as on earth.

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