About
Were you to drive on Maine's Interstate 295 through Yarmouth, it would be next to impossible to miss Eartha.
Eartha, housed in a three-story glass gallery at the former DeLorme Headquarters (they were acquired by Garmin in 2016), is the world's largest rotating/revolving globe. Eartha was designed by CEO David DeLorme and successfully completed two years later in 1998. It won its Guinness Book record the next year, outshining the previous record holders in both Italy and Massachusetts.
Just over 41 feet in diameter, the enormous structure was designed as a scale model. At the scale of 1:1,000,000, or approximately one inch equaling 16 miles, California is a mere three and a half feet tall on Eartha.
Eartha is tilted at 23.5 degrees, just like Earth, and is rotated about that axis by an electric motor. Simultaneously, a second motor swivels the entire tilted, rotating globe around the attachment point to the floor, together giving a approximation of Earth's own simultaneous day-night and annual cycles. It takes about 18 minutes for Eartha to complete a cycle.
Off to the side of Eartha on the ground floor is a display about geocaching, including a large collection of geocoins.
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While the map store that housed Eartha is now closed, the sales agreement allows the globe to keep rotating.
The building is open for public access till 3 pm.
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Published
July 5, 2012
