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by jacobolus 325 days ago
An arcsecond is 1/60 of an arcminute; an arcminute is 1/60 of a degree (°); a degree is 1/360 of a full turn. A "milliarcsecond" is probably an unfamiliar unit (an angle so slight will only be used in extremely specialized contexts), so if you like you could decimalize this to an angle of 0.000001°.

The measure of distance on earth is probably more easily comprehended by almost everyone though.
2 comments
dotancohen 325 days ago 

  > The measure of distance on earth is probably more easily comprehended by almost everyone though.
The measurement itself is useless without knowing the size of the Earth, which very few people know offhand. That said, 30 inches sounds like something tangible, and that's the important information here. That human activity had a measurable, tangible effect on the Earth.
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ForOldHack 325 days ago
Although I hate/detest using AI, I asked Google to calculate it...

0.0000072 degrees is 25.92 milliarcsecond.

Assuming that the Earth is a perfect sphere, which it is not, so now...

I have to burn up some Mathematica time, and have it calculated in elliptical coordinates.

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