Question

Which one of the following cities will never get the vertical rays of the sun?

• A. Srinagar
• B. Mumbai
• C. Kolkata
• D. Thiruvananthapuram

Answer 1

The correct option is A Srinagar

Since Srinagar lies to the north of the Tropic of Cancer, it never gets the vertical rays of the sun.

Distance between Srinagar, India and the Tropic of Cancer

1185 km = 737 miles

During our calculation of the distance to the Tropic of Cancer we made three assumptions.

1) We assumed a spherical Earth as a close approximation of the true shape of the Earth (an oblate spheroid). The distance was calculated as great-circle or orthodromic distance on the surface of a sphere.

2) For each city we chose a particular point inside the city as the "city centre" and calculated the distances using the coordinates of these "city centres". Real distances to other points inside or near the city, for example, to its airport, will differ from our calculation.

3) We calculate the distance between a point on the Earth's surface and the Tropic of Cancer as the length of the arc of the meridian passing through this point and crossing the Tropic of Cancer.