Nestled in the quaint town of Yarmouth, Maine, stands Eartha – the world's largest spinning globe. Crafted over the course of two years starting in 1998, Eartha boasts a diameter stretching over 12.5 meters and a scale of 1:1,000,000, making each inch equal to 16 miles. Settled at a 23.5-degree angle and towering on a cantilever mount, this behemoth is powered by two motors, completing a day's rotation and revolution in a mere 18 minutes. Known as the Omni-Span structure, Eartha is composed of more than 6,000 pieces of aluminum tubing.
Map technician Jeff Clark carefully installed the 792 plastic sections that cover this colossal sphere. Located within an atrium, Eartha is easily visible from U.S. Route 1, and when night falls, it's beautifully lit up. Originally planned to be 12.8 meters in diameter, Eartha was measured by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999 at 12.53 meters. Before its acquisition by Garmin in 2016, Eartha was the brainchild of former CEO of DeLorme Maps, David DeLorme, along with Lewiston-based surveyor and civil engineer, Vincent J.P. Leblanc.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Friendly Jane
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