Question

The angle between the geographical axis and the magnetic axis is 17°, then why does the value of the angle of declination change from place to place?

Answer 1

1. An imaginary line joining the earth’s geographic north and south poles is called the geographic axis.
2. An imaginary plane containing geographic north, south poles and a given place is called a geographic meridian at the given place.
3. The magnetic meridian is an imaginary vertical plane passing through the given place and containing the earth’s magnetic poles.
4. The magnetic axis is an imaginary line joining the earth’s magnetic north and south poles.
5. The angle between the earth’s magnetic meridian and the geographic meridian at a given place is called the angle of declination.
6. It varies from place to place on the earth.
7. The angle of declination depends on the imaginary plane and not the axis, and hence, it varies from place to place.