Geographical mile longitude at the equator is thus exactly 60 geographical miles. It was closely related to the nautical mile, which was originally determined as 1 minute of arc along a great circle of the Earth, but is nowadays defined as exactly 1852 metres. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) notes that: "The international nautical mile of 1 852 meters (6 076.115 49...feet) was adopted effective July 1, 1954, for use in the United States. The value formerly used in the United States was 6 080.20 feet = 1 nautical (geographical or sea) mile." (6080.2 feet is 1853.24496 meters.)
Triangle angles is equal to 90°, adding up to a total of 270°. Specifically, on a sphere the sum of the angles of a triangle is where "f" is the fraction of the sphere's area which is enclosed by the triangle. For example, suppose that we draw a triangle on the Earth's surface with vertices at the North Pole, at a point on the equator at 0° longitude, and a point on the equator at 90° West longitude. The great circle line between the latter two points is the equator, and the great circle line between either of those points and