Eartha

Eartha is the world's largest rotating globe. It has a diameter of 12.52 meters, a weight of 2540 kg and a globe scale of 1:1,000,000.

Site

Eartha located in an exhibition building with large glass walls, which specializes in cartography and geographic information systems publishing DeLorme in Yarmouth, Maine ( USA) immediately adjacent to the U.S. Highway 1 It was completed on 23 July 1998. The globe is illuminated at night. Visitors can look at it from the ground and its upper regions of two balconies.

Cartography

A millimeter on Eartha corresponds to one mile in reality. The globe was prepared from a pooled data base in the satellite images, relief impression, Regional colors ( bathymetric tints of the seas ) and data on roads and urban areas were used.

The globe of 1:1,000,000 scale corresponds to the scale of the International map of the world.

Technology

As with most globes, the axis of rotation of Eartha by 23.5 ° inclined from the vertical to represent the tilt of Earth's axis to the ecliptic. Eartha rotates on a cantilever beam, powered by two engines. Normally, the globe performs a revolution in 18 minutes, but it is also possible a higher rate of speed at which it performs a complete revolution in one minute. With an engine failure in 2006, the world stood still to repair in 2007.

Eartha is constructed around a structure called Omni -Span from 6000 aluminum tubes. These are covered with a coating 792 of card panels each comprising eight and ten degrees of latitude and longitude are mounted on the inner structure with hidden bolt.