London
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans; the City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of the London Assembly. London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. London exerts a considerable impact upon the arts, education, fashion, healthcare, professional services and development, tourism and transportation.
London ranks 26 out of 300 major cities for economic performance. It is one of the largest financial centres and has either the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP, it is the most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the busiest city airport system as measured by passenger traffic. It is the leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted three modern Summer Olympic Games. London has a diverse range of people and cultures, more than 300 languages are spoken in the region, its estimated mid-2016 municipal population was 8,787,892, the most populous of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
The population within the London commuter belt is the most populous in the EU with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016. London was the world's most populous city from c. 1831 to 1925. London contains four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London. Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and The Shard. London has numerous museums, galleries and sporting events; these include the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world. "London" is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD in the Latinised form Londinium. Over the years, the name has attracted many mythicising explanations; the earliest attested appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. This had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had taken over the city and named it Kaerlud.
Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources Latin, Old English, Welsh, with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed; this was adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English, the ancestor-language of English. The toponymy of the Common Brythonic form is much debated. A prominent explanation was Richard Coates's 1998 argument that the name derived from pre-Celtic Old European *lowonida, meaning "river too wide to ford". Coates suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London. However, most work has accepted a Celtic origin for the name, recent studies have favoured an explanation along the lines of a Celtic derivative of a proto-Indo-European root *lendh-, combined with the Celtic suffix *-injo- or *-onjo-. Peter Schrijver has suggested, on these grounds, that the name meant'place that floods'; until 1889, the name "London" applied to the City of London, but since it has referred to the County of London and Greater London.
"London" is sometimes written informally as "LDN". In 1993, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south foreshore, upstream of Vauxhall Bridge; this bridge either reached a now lost island in it. Two of those timbers were radiocarbon dated to between 1750 BC and 1285 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to between 4800 BC and 4500 BC, were found on the Thames's south foreshore, downstream of Vauxhall Bridge; the function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on the south bank. Although there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans about four years after the invasion
Capella
Capella designated α Aurigae, is the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga, the sixth-brightest star in the night sky, the third-brightest in the northern celestial hemisphere after Arcturus and Vega. A prominent object in the northern winter sky, it is circumpolar to observers north of 44°N, its name meaning "little goat" in Latin, Capella depicted the goat Amalthea that suckled Zeus in classical mythology. Capella is close, at only 42.9 light-years from the Sun. Although it appears to be a single star to the naked eye, Capella is a quadruple star system organized in two binary pairs, made up of the stars Capella Aa, Capella Ab, Capella H, Capella L; the primary pair, Capella Aa and Capella Ab, are two bright yellow giant stars, both of which are around 2.5 times as massive as the Sun. The secondary pair, Capella H and Capella L, are around 10,000 astronomical units from the first and are two faint and cool red dwarfs. Capella Aa and Capella Ab have exhausted their core hydrogen, cooled and expanded, moving off the main sequence.
They are in a tight circular orbit about 0.74 AU apart, orbit each other every 104 days. Capella Aa is the cooler and more luminous of the two with spectral class K0III. An ageing red clump star, Capella Aa is fusing helium to oxygen in its core. Capella Ab is smaller and hotter and of spectral class G1III, it is in the Hertzsprung gap, corresponding to a brief subgiant evolutionary phase as it expands and cools to become a red giant. Capella is one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky, thought to come from the corona of Capella Aa. Several other stars in the same visual field have been catalogued as companions but are physically unrelated. Α Aurigae is the star system's Bayer designation. It has the Flamsteed designation 13 Aurigae, it is listed in several multiple star catalogues as ADS 3841, CCDM J05168+4559, WDS J05167+4600. As a nearby star system, Capella is listed in the Gliese-Jahreiss Catalogue with designations GJ 194 for the bright pair of giants and GJ 195 for the faint pair of red dwarfs.
The traditional name Capella is Latin for female goat. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars; the WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names; the catalogue of star names lists Capella as applying to the star α Aurigae Aa. Capella was the brightest star in the night sky from 210,000 years ago to 160,000 years ago, at about −1.8 in apparent magnitude. At −1.1, Aldebaran was brightest before this period. Capella is thought to be mentioned in an Akkadian inscription dating to the 20th century BC, its goat-associated symbolism dates back to Mesopotamia as a constellation called "GAM", "Gamlum" or "MUL. GAM" in the 7th-century BC document MUL. APIN. GAM represented a scimitar or crook and may have represented the star alone or the constellation of Auriga as a whole. Bedouin astronomers created constellations that were groups of animals, where each star represented one animal.
The stars of Auriga comprised a herd of goats, an association present in Greek mythology. It is sometimes called the Shepherd's Star in English literature. Capella was seen as a portent of rain in classical times. Building J of the pre-Columbian site Monte Albán in Oaxaca state in Mexico was built around 275 BC, at a different orientation to other structures in the complex, its steps are aligned perpendicular to the rising of Capella at that time, so that a person looking out a doorway on the building would have faced it directly. Capella is significant as its heliacal rising took place within a day of the Sun passing directly overhead over Monte Albán. Professor William Wallace Campbell of the Lick Observatory announced that Capella was binary in 1899, based on spectroscopic observations—he noted on photographic plates taken from August 1896 to February 1897 that a second spectrum appeared superimposed over the first, that there was a doppler shift to violet in September and October and to red in November and February—showing that the components were moving toward and away from the Earth.
British astronomer Hugh Newall had observed its composite spectrum with a four prism spectroscope attached to a 25 inches telescope at Cambridge in July 1899, concluding that it was a binary star system. Many observers tried to discern the component stars without success. Known as "The Interferometrist's Friend", it was first resolved interferometrically in 1919 by John Anderson and Francis Pease at Mount Wilson Observatory, who published an orbit in 1920 based on their observations; this was the first interferometric measurement of any object outside the Solar System. A high-precision orbit was published in 1994 based on observations by the Mark III Stellar Interferometer, again at Mount Wilson Observatory. Capella became the first astronomical object to be imaged by a separate element optical interferometer when it was imaged by the Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope in September 1995. In 1914, Finnish astronomer Ragnar Furuhjelm observed that the spectroscopic binary had a faint c
Cassiopeia (constellation)
Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivaled beauty. Cassiopeia was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today, it is recognizable due to its distinctive'W' shape, formed by five bright stars. It is opposite Ursa Major. In northern locations above latitude 34ºN it is visible year-round and in the tropics it can be seen at its clearest from September to early November. In low southern latitudes below 25ºS it can be seen low in the North. At magnitude 2.2, Alpha Cassiopeiae, or Schedar, is the brightest star in Cassiopeia, though is shaded by Gamma Cassiopeiae, which has brightened to magnitude 1.6 on occasion. The constellation hosts some of the most luminous stars known, including the yellow hypergiants Rho Cassiopeiae and V509 Cassiopeiae and white hypergiant 6 Cassiopeiae; the semiregular variable. In 1572, Tycho Brahe's supernova flared brightly in Cassiopeia.
Cassiopeia A is a supernova remnant and the brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky at frequencies above 1 GHz. Fourteen star systems have been found to have exoplanets, one of which—HR 8832—is thought to host seven planets. A rich section of the Milky Way runs through Cassiopeia, containing a number of open clusters, young luminous galactic disc stars, nebulae. IC 10 is an irregular galaxy, the closest known starburst galaxy and the only one in the Local Group of galaxies; the constellation is named after the queen of Aethiopia. Cassiopeia was the wife of mother of Princess Andromeda. Cepheus and Cassiopeia were placed next to each other among the stars, along with Andromeda, she was placed in the sky as a punishment after enraging Poseidon with the boast that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids or, that she herself was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. She was forced to wheel around the North Celestial Pole on her throne, spending half of her time clinging to it so she does not fall off, Poseidon decreed that Andromeda should be bound to a rock as prey for the monster Cetus.
Andromeda was rescued by the hero Perseus, whom she married. Cassiopeia has been variously portrayed throughout her history as a constellation. In Persia, she was drawn by al-Sufi as a queen holding a staff with a crescent moon in her right hand, wearing a crown, as well as a two-humped camel. In France, she was portrayed as having a marble throne and a palm leaf in her left hand, holding her robe in her right hand; this depiction is from Augustin Royer's 1679 atlas. In Chinese astronomy, the stars forming the constellation Cassiopeia are found among three areas: the Purple Forbidden enclosure, the Black Tortoise of the North, the White Tiger of the West; the Chinese astronomers saw several figures in. Kappa, Mu Cassiopeiae formed a constellation called the Bridge of the Kings; the charioteer's whip was represented by Gamma Cassiopeiae, sometimes called "Tsih", the Chinese word for "whip". In the 1600s, various Biblical figures were depicted in the stars of Cassiopeia; these included Solomon's mother.
A figure called the "Tinted Hand" appeared in the stars of Cassiopeia in some Arab atlases. This is variously said to represent a woman's hand dyed red with henna, as well as the bloodied hand of Muhammad's daughter Fatima; the hand is made up of the stars α Cas, β Cas, γ Cas, δ Cas, ε Cas, η Cas. The arm is made up of the stars α Per, γ Per, δ Per, ε Per, η Per, ν Per. Another Arab constellation that incorporated the stars of Cassiopeia was the Camel, its head was composed of Lambda, Kappa and Phi Andromedae. Other cultures see a moose antlers in the pattern; these include the Lapps. The Chukchi of Siberia saw the five main stars as five reindeer stags; the people of the Marshall Islands saw Cassiopeia as part of a great porpoise constellation. The main stars of Cassiopeia make its tail and Triangulum form its body, Aries makes its head. In Hawaii, Alpha and Gamma Cassiopeiae were named. Alpha Cassiopeiae was called Poloahilani, Beta Cassiopeiae was called Polula, Gamma Cassiopeiae was called Mulehu.
The people of Pukapuka saw the figure of Cassiopeia as a distinct constellation called Na Taki-tolu-a-Mataliki. In Modern Indian Astronomy Cassiopeia is known as Sharmishtha. In Hindu mythology, Sharmistha known as Sharmista or Sharmishtha, was the daughter of the great Devil King Vrishparva, she was a friend of Devayani for whom she becomes a servant. Covering 598.4 square degrees and hence 1.451% of the sky, Cassiopeia ranks 25th of the 88 constellations in area. It is bordered by Cepheus to the north and west, Andromeda to the south and west, Perseus to the southeast and Camelopardalis to the east, shares a short border with Lacerta to the west; the three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is'Cas'. The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 30 segments. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 00h 27m 03s and 23h 41m 06s, while the decl
Azimuth
An azimuth is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. The vector from an observer to a point of interest is projected perpendicularly onto a reference plane; when used as a celestial coordinate, the azimuth is the horizontal direction of a star or other astronomical object in the sky. The star is the point of interest, the reference plane is the local area around an observer on Earth's surface, the reference vector points to true north; the azimuth is the star's vector on the horizontal plane. Azimuth is measured in degrees; the concept is used in navigation, engineering, mapping and ballistics. In land navigation, azimuth is denoted alpha, α, defined as a horizontal angle measured clockwise from a north base line or meridian. Azimuth has been more defined as a horizontal angle measured clockwise from any fixed reference plane or established base direction line. Today, the reference plane for an azimuth is true north, measured as a 0° azimuth, though other angular units can be used.
Moving clockwise on a 360 degree circle, east has azimuth 90°, south 180°, west 270°. There are exceptions: some navigation systems use south as the reference vector. Any direction can be the reference vector, as long as it is defined. Quite azimuths or compass bearings are stated in a system in which either north or south can be the zero, the angle may be measured clockwise or anticlockwise from the zero. For example, a bearing might be described as " south, thirty degrees east", abbreviated "S30°E", the bearing 30 degrees in the eastward direction from south, i.e. the bearing 150 degrees clockwise from north. The reference direction, stated first, is always north or south, the turning direction, stated last, is east or west; the directions are chosen so that the angle, stated between them, is positive, between zero and 90 degrees. If the bearing happens to be in the direction of one of the cardinal points, a different notation, e.g. "due east", is used instead. The cartographical azimuth can be calculated when the coordinates of 2 points are known in a flat plane: α = 180 π atan2 Remark that the reference axes are swapped relative to the mathematical polar coordinate system and that the azimuth is clockwise relative to the north.
This is the reason why the Y axis in the above formula are swapped. If the azimuth becomes negative, one can always add 360°; the formula in radians would be easier: α = atan2 Caveat: Most computer libraries reverse the order of the atan2 parameters. When the coordinates of one point, the distance L, the azimuth α to another point are known, one can calculate its coordinates: X 2 = X 1 + L sin α Y 2 = Y 1 + L cos α This is used in triangulation. We are standing at latitude φ 1, longitude zero. We can get a fair approximation by assuming the Earth is a sphere, in which case the azimuth α is given by tan α = sin L cos φ 1 tan φ 2 − sin φ 1 cos L A better approximation assumes the Earth is a slightly-squashed sphere. Normal-section azimuth is the angle measured at our viewpoint by a theodolite whose axis is perpendicular to the surface of the spheroid; the difference is immeasurably small. Various websites will calculate geodetic azimuth. Formulas for calculating geodetic azimuth are linked in the distance
Cepheus (constellation)
Cepheus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after Cepheus, a king of Aethiopia in Greek mythology. Cepheus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the second century astronomer Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 constellations in the modern times; the constellation's brightest star is Alpha Cephei, with an apparent magnitude of 2.5. Delta Cephei is the prototype of an important class of star known as a Cepheid variable. RW Cephei, an orange hypergiant, together with the red supergiants Mu Cephei, MY Cephei, VV Cephei, V354 Cephei are among the largest stars known. In addition, Cepheus has the hyperluminous quasar S5 0014+81, which hosts an ultramassive black hole in its core, reported at 40 billion solar masses, about 10,000 times more massive than the central black hole of the Milky Way, making this among the most massive black holes known. Cepheus was the King of Aethiopia, he was married to Cassiopeia and was the father of Andromeda, both of whom are immortalized as modern day constellations along with Cepheus.
Alpha Cephei known as Alderamin, is the brightest star in the constellation, with an apparent magnitude of 2.51. Delta Cephei is the prototype Cepheid variable, a yellow-hued supergiant star 980 light-years from Earth, it was discovered to be variable by John Goodricke in 1784. It varies between 3.5 4.4 m over a period of 5 days and 9 hours. The Cepheids are a class of pulsating variable stars, it is a double star. There are three red giants in the constellation. Mu Cephei is known as Herschel's Garnet Star due to its deep red colour, it is a semiregular variable star with a minimum magnitude of 5.1 and a maximum magnitude of 3.4. Its period is 2 years; the star is around 5.64 AU in radius. If it were placed at the center of the Solar System, it would extend to the orbit of Jupiter. Another, VV Cephei A, like Mu Cephei, is a red supergiant and a semiregular variable star, located at least 5,000 light-years from Earth, it has a minimum magnitude of 5.4 and a maximum magnitude of 4.8, is paired with a blue main sequence star called VV Cephei B.
One of the largest stars in the galaxy, it has a diameter 1,400 times that of the Sun. VV Cephei is an unusually long-period eclipsing binary, but the eclipses, which occur every 20.3 years, are too faint to be observed with the unaided eye. T Cephei a red giant, is a Mira variable with a minimum magnitude of 11.3 and a maximum magnitude of 5.2, 685 light-years from Earth. It has a diameter of between 329 to 500 solar diameters. There are binary stars in Cepheus. Omicron Cephei is a binary star with a period of 800 years; the system, 211 light-years from Earth, consists of an orange-hued giant primary of magnitude 4.9 and a secondary of magnitude 7.1. Xi Cephei is 102 light-years from Earth, with a period of 4,000 years, it has a blue-white primary of magnitude 4.4 and a yellow secondary of magnitude 6.5. Kruger 60 is an 11th-magnitude binary star consisting of two red dwarfs; the star system is one of the nearest. NGC 188 is an open cluster that has the distinction of being the closest open cluster to the north celestial pole, as well as one of the oldest-known open clusters.
NGC 6946 is a spiral galaxy in which ten supernovae have been observed, more than in any other galaxy. IC 469 is another spiral galaxy, characterized by a compact nucleus, of oval shape, with perceptible side arms; the nebula NGC 7538 is home to the largest-yet-discovered protostar. NGC 7023 is a reflection nebula with an associated star cluster; the nebula and cluster are located near T Cephei. S 155 known as the Cave Nebula, is a dim and diffuse bright nebula within a larger nebula complex containing emission and dark nebulosity; the quasar 6C B0014+8120 is one of the most powerful objects in the universe, powered by a supermassive black hole equivalent to 40 billion Suns. Cepheus is most depicted as holding his arms aloft, praying for the deities to spare the life of Andromeda, he is depicted as a more regal monarch sitting on his throne. In Chinese astronomy, the stars of the constellation Cepheus are found in two areas: the Purple Forbidden enclosure and the Black Tortoise of the North. In the TV sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, the aliens' home planet is stated to be located in a barred spiral galaxy on the Cepheus-Draco border.
One antagonist of the video game Mega Man Star Force is a character named King Cepheus. Contextually, the constellation Cepheus is the one referenced by this name; the Canadian musician Deadmau5 named his song "HR 8938 Cephei" after a star in the constellation. An end-of-game boss in the video game Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is called King Cepheus, after the constellation. USS Cepheus and USS Cepheus, United States Navy ships. Cepheus in Chinese astronomy Levy, David H.. Deep Sky Objects. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-361-0. Ridpath, Ian. Stars and Planets Guide, London. ISBN 978-0-00-725120-9. Princeton University Press, Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-13556-4. Staal, Julius D. W; the New Patterns in the Sky: Myths and Legends of the Stars, The McDonald and Woodward Publishing Company, ISBN 0-939923-04-1 The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Cepheus The clickable Ce
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process, it is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometers, or 109 times that of Earth, its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen; the Sun is a G-type main-sequence star based on its spectral class. As such, it is informally and not accurately referred to as a yellow dwarf, it formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into an orbiting disk that became the Solar System; the central mass became so hot and dense that it initiated nuclear fusion in its core. It is thought that all stars form by this process.
The Sun is middle-aged. It fuses about 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second, converting 4 million tons of matter into energy every second as a result; this energy, which can take between 10,000 and 170,000 years to escape from its core, is the source of the Sun's light and heat. In about 5 billion years, when hydrogen fusion in its core has diminished to the point at which the Sun is no longer in hydrostatic equilibrium, its core will undergo a marked increase in density and temperature while its outer layers expand to become a red giant, it is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large to engulf the current orbits of Mercury and Venus, render Earth uninhabitable. After this, it will shed its outer layers and become a dense type of cooling star known as a white dwarf, no longer produce energy by fusion, but still glow and give off heat from its previous fusion; the enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, the Sun has been regarded by some cultures as a deity.
The synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of solar calendars, one of, the predominant calendar in use today. The English proper name Sun may be related to south. Cognates to English sun appear in other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian sunne, Old Saxon sunna, Middle Dutch sonne, modern Dutch zon, Old High German sunna, modern German Sonne, Old Norse sunna, Gothic sunnō. All Germanic terms for the Sun stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn; the Latin name for the Sun, Sol, is not used in everyday English. Sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on another planet, such as Mars; the related word solar is the usual adjectival term used for the Sun, in terms such as solar day, solar eclipse, Solar System. A mean Earth solar day is 24 hours, whereas a mean Martian'sol' is 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.244 seconds. The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English and is a result of a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis, itself a translation of the Greek ἡμέρα ἡλίου.
The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star. The Sun has an absolute magnitude of +4.83, estimated to be brighter than about 85% of the stars in the Milky Way, most of which are red dwarfs. The Sun is heavy-element-rich, star; the formation of the Sun may have been triggered by shockwaves from more nearby supernovae. This is suggested by a high abundance of heavy elements in the Solar System, such as gold and uranium, relative to the abundances of these elements in so-called Population II, heavy-element-poor, stars; the heavy elements could most plausibly have been produced by endothermic nuclear reactions during a supernova, or by transmutation through neutron absorption within a massive second-generation star. The Sun is by far the brightest object in the Earth's sky, with an apparent magnitude of −26.74. This is about 13 billion times brighter than the next brightest star, which has an apparent magnitude of −1.46. The mean distance of the Sun's center to Earth's center is 1 astronomical unit, though the distance varies as Earth moves from perihelion in January to aphelion in July.
At this average distance, light travels from the Sun's horizon to Earth's horizon in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds, while light from the closest points of the Sun and Earth takes about two seconds less. The energy of this sunlight supports all life on Earth by photosynthesis, drives Earth's climate and weather; the Sun does not have a definite boundary, but its density decreases exponentially with increasing height above the photosphere. For the purpose of measurement, the Sun's radius is considered to be the distance from its center to the edge of the photosphere, the apparent visible surface of the Sun. By this measure, the Sun is a near-perfect sphere with an oblateness estimated at about 9 millionths, which means that its polar diameter differs from its equatorial diameter by only 10 kilometres; the tidal effect of the planets is weak and does not affect the shape of the Sun. The Sun rotates faster at its equator than at its poles; this differential rotation is caused by convective motion
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 437,994. In 2015, the population was estimated to be 452,745. In 2017 the estimated population was 450,435. Although suburban in character, it is the most populous city in Virginia and the 41st most populous city in the nation. Located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia Beach is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area; this area, known as "America's First Region" includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities and towns of Hampton Roads. Virginia Beach is a resort city with miles of beaches and hundreds of hotels and restaurants along its oceanfront; every year the city hosts the East Coast Surfing Championships as well as the North American Sand Soccer Championship, a beach soccer tournament. It is home to several state parks, several long-protected beach areas, three military bases, a number of large corporations, Regent University, International headquarters and site of the television broadcast studios for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment, numerous historic sites.
Near the point where the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean meet, Cape Henry was the site of the first landing of the English colonists, who settled in Jamestown, on April 26, 1607. The city is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the longest pleasure beach in the world, it is located at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the longest bridge-tunnel complex in the world. The Chesepian were the historic indigenous people of the area now known as Tidewater in Virginia at the time of European encounter. Little is known about them but archeological evidence suggests they may have been related to the Carolina Algonquian, or Pamlico people, they would have spoken one of the Algonquian languages. These were common among the numerous tribes of the coastal area, who made up the loose Powhatan Confederacy, numbering in the tens of thousands in population; the Chesepian occupied an area, now defined as the independent cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach. In 1607, after a voyage of 144 days, three ships headed by Captain Christopher Newport, carrying 105 men and boys, made their first landfall in the New World on the mainland, where the southern mouth of the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.
They named it Cape Henry, after Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James I of England. These English colonists of the Virginia Company of London moved on from this area, as they were under orders to seek a site further inland, which would be more sheltered from ships of competing European countries, they created their first permanent settlement on the north side of the James River at Jamestown. Adam Thoroughgood of King's Lynn, England is one of the earliest Englishmen to settle in this area, developed as Virginia Beach. At the age of 18, he had contracted as an indentured servant to pay for passage to the Virginia Colony in the hopes of bettering his life, he became a leading citizen of the area. In 1629, he was elected to the House of Burgesses for Elizabeth Cittie, one of four "citties" which were subdivided areas established in 1619. In 1634, the Colony was divided into the original eight shires of Virginia, soon renamed as counties. Thoroughgood is credited with using the name of his home in England when helping name "New Norfolk County" in 1637.
The following year, New Norfolk County was split into Lower Norfolk County. Thoroughgood resided after 1634 was along the Lynnhaven River, named for his home in England. Lower Norfolk County was large when first organized, defined as from the Atlantic Ocean west past the Elizabeth River, encompassing the entire area now within the modern cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk and Virginia Beach, it attracted many entrepreneurs, including William Moseley with his family in 1648. Belonging to the Merchant Adventurers Guild of London, he immigrated from Rotterdam of the Netherlands, where he had been in the international trade, he settled on land on the north side of the Elizabeth River, east of. Following increased settlement, in 1691 Lower Norfolk County was divided to form Norfolk and Princess Anne counties. Princess Anne, the easternmost county in South Hampton Roads, extended from Cape Henry at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, south to what became the border of the North Carolina colony, it included all of the area fronting the Atlantic Ocean.
Princess Anne County was known as a jurisdiction over 250 years. In the early centuries, this area was developed for plantation agriculture. In the late 19th century, the small resort area of Virginia Beach developed in Princess Anne County after the 1883 arrival of rail service to the coast; the Virginia Beach Hotel was opened and operated by the Norfolk and Virginia Beach Railroad and Improvement Company at the oceanfront, near the tiny community of Seatack. The hotel was foreclosed and the railroad reorganized in 1887; the hotel was reopened in 1888 as the Princess Anne Hotel. In 1891, guests at the new hotel watched the wreck and rescue efforts of the United States Life-Saving Service for the Norwegian bark Dictator; the ship's figurehead, which washed up on the beach several days was erected as a monument to the victims and rescuers. It stood along the oceanfront for more than 50 years. In the 21st
