Circle of a sphere Circle of a sphere A circle of a sphere is a circle that lies on a sphere. Such a circle can be formed as the intersection of a sphere and a plane, or of two spheres. A circle on a sphere whose plane passes through the center of the sphere is called a great circle; otherwise it is a small circle. Circles of a sphere have radius less than or equal to the sphere radius, with equality when the circle is a great circle. In the geographic coordinate system on a globe, the parallels of latitude are such circles, with
Distance from a point to a line equation of a line can be given in vector form: Here is the position of a point on the line, and is a unit vector in the direction of the line. Then as scalar "t" varies, gives the locus of the line. The distance of an arbitrary point to this line is given by This formula can be derived as follows: formula_39 is a vector from to the point on the line. Then formula_40 is the projected length onto the line and so is a vector that is the projection of formula_39 onto the line. Thus is the component of