(Originais Teachy 2023) - Question Very Hard of Geography

In a mapping exercise for a geographical expedition, a group of 1st-year high school students needs to create an orientation map using the equidistant azimuthal projection to represent the Earth's surface. They have chosen point A at latitude 30°S and longitude 45°W, and point B at latitude 30°N and longitude 45°E. By using the formula for the distance between two points on a sphere, where R is the radius of the Earth (considered 6371 km), and the coordinates (lat1, long1) and (lat2, long2) are the pairs of latitude and longitude in radians for points A and B, respectively: d = R * arccos(sin(lat1) * sin(lat2) + cos(lat1) * cos(lat2) * cos(long2 - long1)), the students must calculate the linear distance between points A and B to correctly plot the distance on the azimuthal map. Additionally, they should explain how the equidistant azimuthal projection distorts the areas and shapes of the continents and how this distortion can affect the perception of distance on the final map.