Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization

by Graham Hancock

First, a point of terminology. Seconds of arc are the smallest subdivisions of a degree of arc. There are 60 of these arc seconds in one arc minute, 60 minutes in one degree, and 360 degrees in the full circle of earth’s path around the sun. An annual change of 50.274 seconds of arc represents a distance somewhat under one-sixtieth of one degree so that it takes roughly 72 years (an entire human lifetime) for the equinoctial sun to migrate just one degree along the ecliptic. It is because of the observational difficulties entailed in detecting this snails’ pace rate of change that the value worked out by Hipparchus in the second century BC is hailed in the Britannica as a ‘notable discovery’.