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Longest ocean voyage you could ever sail in a straight line

by Peter Dockrill 6 May 2018 10:30 UTC
Longest ocean voyage you could ever sail in a straight line © mihtiander / iStock / sciencealert.com

Staring out over the vastness of the ocean, it feels like the distant blue horizon goes on forever and ever. But it doesn't, and you can't.

If you were to set sail in a straight line from the shore – never turning once to steer your way around islands or continents – what's the furthest you could you go before making a voyage-ending, inevitable landfall?

We now have an answer to this sea-faring riddle, thanks to science.

In actual fact, we've held the answer in our hands for some time, although the source of the solution remained unconfirmed – not to mention a little bit mysterious.

In 2012, Reddit user kepleronlyknows posted a map on Reddit that he claimed was the longest straight line you could trace across Earth's oceans: a trek of almost 20,000 miles (32,186 km) in a straight line from Pakistan to the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.

Read the full article here.

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