Null Island
Null Island is a name for the area around the point where the prime meridian and the equator cross, located in the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) off the west African coast.[1] In the WGS84 datum, this is at zero degrees latitude and longitude (0°N 0°E / 0°N 0°E / 0; 0), and is the location of a buoy. The name 'Null Island' serves as both a joke based around the suppositional existence of an island there, and also as a name to which coordinates erroneously set to 0,0 are assigned in placenames databases in order to more easily find and fix them. The nearest land is a small islet offshore of Ghana, between Akwidaa and Dixcove at 4°45′30″N 1°58′33″W / 4.75833°N 1.97583°W / 4.75833; -1.97583, 307.8 nmi (354.2 mi; 570.0 km) to the north.
Natural Earth
In terms of computing and placenames databases, the coordinates for Null Island were added to the Natural Earth public domain map dataset[2][3][4]c. 2010–2011, after which the term came into wide use (although there is evidence of it being used previously).[5] Since then, the 'island' has through fiction been given a geography (based on the setting of the video game Myst), history, and flag.[1] Natural Earth describes the entity as a "1 meter square island" with "scale rank 100, indicating it should never be shown in mapping".[2] The name 'Null' refers to the two zero co-ordinates, both of which are sometimes known as null in mathematics.
The location is used by mapping systems to trap errors.[3] Such errors arise, for example, where an image artifact is erroneously associated to the location by software which cannot attribute a geo-position, and instead associates a latitude and longitude of "Null,Null" or "0,0".[6]
Other data mapped to the location include activity events from the Strava fitness-tracking app, apparently (as reported in January 2018 by Bellingcat) mapped to the location due to users entering "0,0" coordinates to disguise their real location.[7]
'Soul' Buoy
The only actual non-oceanic feature in that region is a moored weather and sea observation buoy. This buoy ("Station 13010 - Soul") is part of the PIRATA system operated jointly by the United States, France, and Brazil.[8] The depth at this place is around 4,940 metres (16,210 ft).[9]
See also
- Colonel Bleep, a 1957 cartoon that took place on the fictitious Zero Zero Island, at the same location as Null Island, where earth's equator meets the Greenwich Meridian.
References
from Hacker News https://ift.tt/1ByaJny