Which projection results from projecting meridians and parallels onto a plane from a point on the earth opposite the tangency point?

• A. Mercator
• B. Stereographic
• C. Gnomonic
• D. Mollweide

Answer: (B)

The main idea is a stereographic projection, which is a perspective azimuthal projection created by projecting points from the sphere onto a plane from the point opposite the tangency point. In other words, you take the point on the Earth opposite to where the plane touches the globe, cast lines through that antipodal point, and where those lines meet the tangent plane gives the projected coordinates. This construction makes the projection conformal, so angles are preserved, and circles on the sphere map to circles (or lines) on the plane.

That’s why this choice fits: projecting from the antipodal point to the plane tangent at a point yields the stereographic projection. Other projections come from different constructions—Mercator uses a cylinder tangent at the equator, gnomonic projects from the center onto the plane tangent at a point, and Mollweide is an equal-area method with a different, non-azimuthal setup.