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Our planet is conventionally divided into four hemispheres. How are the boundaries between them defined? What are the characteristics of the hemispheres of the Earth?

Equator and meridian

It has the shape of a ball, slightly flattened at the poles - a spheroid. In scientific circles, its shape is usually called the geoid, that is, "like the Earth." The surface of the geoid is perpendicular to the direction of gravity at any point.

For convenience, the characteristics of the planet use conditional, or imaginary, lines. One of them is the axis. It runs through the center of the Earth, connecting the upper and lower parts, called the North and South Poles.

Between the poles, at an equal distance from them, is the next imaginary line, which is called the equator. It is horizontal and is a separator into the Southern (everything below the line) and Northern (everything above the line) hemispheres of the Earth. is a little over 40 thousand kilometers.

Another conditional line is Greenwich, or This is a vertical line passing through the observatory in Greenwich. The meridian divides the planet into the Western and Eastern hemispheres, and is also the starting point for measuring geographic longitude.

The difference between the southern and northern hemispheres

The equator line horizontally divides the planet in half, while crossing several continents. Africa, Eurasia and South America are partially located in two hemispheres at once. The rest of the continents are located within one. So, Australia and Antarctica are completely in the southern part, and North America- in the north.

The hemispheres of the Earth have other differences. Thanks to the Arctic Ocean at the pole, the climate of the Northern Hemisphere is generally milder than the Southern, where the land is located - Antarctica. The seasons in the hemispheres are opposite: winter in the northern part of the planet comes simultaneously with summer in the south.

The difference is observed in the movement of air and water. To the north of the equator, river flows and sea currents deviate to the right (river banks are usually steeper to the right), anticyclones rotate clockwise, and cyclones counterclockwise. To the south of the equator, everything happens exactly the opposite.

Even the starry sky above is different. The pattern in each hemisphere is different. The main landmark for the northern part of the Earth is the polar star, the Southern Cross serves as a landmark. Above the equator, land dominates, and therefore the main number of people live here. below the equator total number of the inhabitants is 10%, since the oceanic part predominates.

Western and Eastern Hemispheres

Earth is located to the east of the prime meridian. Within its limits is Australia, most of Africa, Eurasia, part of Antarctica. Approximately 82% of the world's population lives here. In a geopolitical and cultural sense, it is called the Old World, as opposed to the New World of the American continents. In the eastern part there is a deep trench and the most high mountain on our planet.

The Western Hemisphere of the Earth is located west of the Greenwich Meridian. It covers North and South America, part of Africa and Eurasia. It fully includes Atlantic Ocean and much of the Pacific. Here is the longest mountain range in the world, the largest volcano, the driest desert, the highest mountain lake and a full-flowing river. Only 18% of the inhabitants live in the western part of the world.

Dateline

As already mentioned, the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth are separated by the Greenwich meridian. Its continuation is the 180th meridian, which outlines the border on the other side. It is the date line, it is here that today turns into tomorrow.

Different calendar days are fixed on both sides of the meridian. This is due to the peculiarities of the rotation of the planet. The International Date Line mostly passes through the ocean, but also crosses some islands (Vanua Levu, Taviuni, etc.). In these places, for convenience, the line is shifted along the land border, otherwise the inhabitants of one island would exist on different dates.

constellation map
southern hemisphere

Constellations are arbitrarily taken stellar groups, as they are seen from the earth and completely independent of the actual distances and possible interconnection of the stars. The division of stars into constellations dates back to the deepest antiquity. Most of the constellations transmitted to us by the Arabs from the Greeks undoubtedly originated in the primitive pre-Semitic cultures of Mesopotamia. The main place among them is occupied by the zodiac constellations. The themes for the zodiac constellations were the hoary legends of primitive mankind, ideas about its fate, less often the personification of astronomical and meteorological phenomena. The oldest names of the constellations were abbreviations for myths.

Astronomer Jan Hevelius

Ptolemy in his work "Almagest" canonized the following 48 ancient constellations, which are still called Ptolemaic. Zodiac constellations: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. Northern constellations: Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Dragon, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus, Bootes, Northern Crown, Hercules, Lyra, Cygnus, Charioteer, Ophiuchus, Snake, Arrow, Eagle, Dolphin, Foal, Pegasus, Triangle. Southern constellations: Whale, Orion, River, Hare, Dog large, small, Ship, Hydra, Bowl, Raven, Centaurus, Wolf, Altar, Southern Crown, Southern Fish. Ptolemy did not consider Coma Veronica to be a separate constellation.

Arab stargazers, in addition to lunar houses, gave various names for individual bright stars. Having become acquainted with the astronomy of the Greeks and having translated Ptolemy's Almagest, they changed some names according to the position of the stars in the drawings of the Ptolemaic constellations. In the 12th century, a Latin translation of the Almagest from Arabic was made, and in the 16th century, directly from Greek, according to found manuscripts. The stars of the southern hemisphere, unknown to Greek astronomers, were broken down into constellations much later. Some of them were outlined by the Arabs.

There is no doubt that the navigators of the 15th and 16th centuries (Vespucci, Corsali, Pigafetta, Peter Medinsky, Gutman) gradually assembled new constellations during their travels to the southern seas. They were put in order by Peter Dirk Keizer. During his stay on the island of Java (1595), he identified the locations of 120 southern stars and placed constellation figures on them. The following 13 constellations were included in the atlases of Bayer (1603) and Bartsch (1624) on the basis of Keyser's description: Phoenix, Goldfish, Chameleon, Flying Fish, Southern Cross, Water Snake, Fly, Bird of Paradise, Southern Triangle, Peacock, Indian, Crane, Toucan. Of these, the Southern Cross was known to Ptolemy and was part of the Centaurus.

The current names of the constellations and stars represent an amalgam of these lists and translations. The ancient drawings of the constellations are completely lost. Only distorted figures on Arabic globes of the thirteenth century have come down to us; for example, on a globe in the Borghese Museum in Veletri (1225), in the Mathematical Society in Dresden (1279), in the London Astronomical Society, etc. At the beginning of the 16th century, the famous Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer painted the constellations according to their description by Ptolemy.

Unfortunately, not a single original copy of Dürer's drawings has survived. Dürer's drawings, modified by other artists, were reprinted in the star atlases of Bayer (1603), Flamsteed (1729). Then the figures of the constellations of the newest layout appeared. Currently, constellation drawings are no longer printed. The merit of expelling the "menagerie" from astronomical atlases belongs to Harding. He published in 1823 a celestial atlas, where only the boundaries of the constellations were plotted.

In Antarctica. The word "hemisphere" means half a sphere, and since our planet is a sphere (ellipsoid) oblate at the poles, it is divided into two hemispheres.

Due to the large amount of water in the Southern Hemisphere, the climate here is milder than in the Northern Hemisphere. In general, water heats up and cools more slowly than land, so water near any land area tends to have a moderating effect on the climate.

The Southern Hemisphere, like the Northern Hemisphere, is also divided into several different regions based on climate. The most widespread is the Southern Temperate Zone, which runs from the Tropic of Capricorn to the beginning of the Arctic Circle at 66.5 ° south latitude. The area has a temperate climate with high rainfall. cold winter and warm summer. Some countries located in the southern temperate zone include most of Chile, Uruguay, South Africa, all of New Zealand and southern regions of Australia.

The area immediately north of the southern temperate zone, located between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, known as the tropics, has high temperatures and high rainfall throughout the year.

South of the Arctic Circle is the Antarctic continent. Antarctica, unlike the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, is not heated by the large presence of water because it is a very large land mass. In addition, it is much colder here than in the Arctic in the Northern Hemisphere for the same reason.

Summer in the Southern Hemisphere lasts from December 21 or 22 to the autumnal equinox on March 20. Winter lasts from June 20 or 21 to the spring equinox on September 22 or 23. These dates are due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, which in the period from December 21 (22) to March 20, in the Southern Hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun, while during the period from 20 ( 21) June to 22 (23) September, it is tilted away from the Sun.

Coriolis effect in the southern hemisphere

An important component of the physical in the Southern Hemisphere is the Coriolis force and the specific direction in which objects are deflected in the southern half of the Earth. In the Southern Hemisphere, any object moving over and on the Earth's surface is deflected to the left.

Because of this, any large air or water mass south of the equator spins counterclockwise. For example, large ocean currents in the Southern Hemisphere turn counterclockwise. In the northern hemisphere, these directions reverse as all objects lean to the right.

In addition, the left deflection of objects affects the airflow. For example, systems of high atmospheric pressure(anticyclones) in the Southern Hemisphere move counterclockwise due to the Coriolis Effect. On the other hand, low atmospheric pressure systems (cyclones) move clockwise.

population of the southern hemisphere

Map of the distribution of the world's population

Since the Southern Hemisphere has a smaller land area than northern hemisphere, the population here is much smaller (about 800 million people). The majority of the world's population (about 90%) and its largest cities are in the Northern Hemisphere, although there are big cities and in the South, such as Lima (Peru), Cape Town (South Africa), Santiago (Chile) and Auckland (New Zealand).

Antarctica is the largest landmass in the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest on the planet. Despite its large area, the continent is practically undeveloped by people due to the extremely harsh climate. All people in Antarctica are employees of scientific research stations, most of which work only in summer time of the year.

Despite its small population, the Southern Hemisphere is incredibly biologically diverse, as most of the rainforests are found in this half of the Earth. For example, the Amazon rainforest is located almost entirely in the Southern Hemisphere, as are other biologically diverse places such as Madagascar and New Zealand. Antarctica also has a significant diversity of species adapted to the harsh climate, such as emperor penguins, seals, whales, as well as different kinds plants and algae.