From space our Earth appears to be perfectly round, but really its a big bumpy spheroid! This is not to say Earth is flat. Well before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Aristotle and other ancient Greek scholars proposed that Earth was round. This was based on a number of observations, such as the fact that departing ships not only appeared smaller as they sailed away but also seemed to sink into the horizon, as one might expect if sailing across a ball. Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. Instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid—a sphere that is squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator. He was correct and, because of this bulge, the distance from Earth's center to sea level is roughly 13 miles greater at the equator than at the poles. Instead of Earth being like a spinning top made of steel, it has a bit of plasticity (mushy-ness) that allows the shape to deform very slightly. The effect would be similar to spinning a bit of Silly Putty, though Earth's plasticity is much, much less than that of the silicone plastic clay so familiar to children. Our globe, however, is not even a perfect oblate spheroid, because mass is distributed unevenly within the planet. The greater a concentration of mass is, the stronger its gravitational pull, "creating bumps around the globe". Earth's shape also changes over time due to a whole bunch of other dynamic factors. Mass shifts around inside the planet, mountains and valleys emerge and disappear due to plate tectonics. Occasionally meteors crater the surface. And the gravitational pull of the moon and sun not only cause ocean and atmospheric tides but earth tides as well. Scientists put satellite data into a computer to measure the earth and these are some of the pictures they get....weird but true!!
Is this its true shape? Maybe, with more advanced technology a better picture of what our earth really looks like will be decided.
11 Comments
Addi Ihler
9/19/2016 04:26:36 pm
Wow that is fascinating!!😱
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Tyler
9/19/2016 05:29:16 pm
Ya, they're so weird!👽😳
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Jaxon bunker
9/19/2016 06:10:37 pm
This is very interesting crazy to think that earth isn't perfectly round🤔
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Caden
9/19/2016 07:24:10 pm
That earth picture looks so cool and weird at the same time.
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Paige
9/19/2016 08:04:24 pm
WOW! cool i never knew that
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jenna
9/19/2016 09:16:48 pm
sick thats awesome
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jenna
9/20/2016 07:27:10 am
the pics are amazing
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Ema Martinez
9/21/2016 06:39:42 pm
wow! that is really amazing! i never new that the earth was not a perfect circle.
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eeasea
1/28/2021 10:36:39 am
Lol this is so fake
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Flat Earth
2/22/2021 01:58:06 pm
Based on this logic, every "picture" of the earth from space is fake and we have been lied to the whole time. Take that and rewind it back.
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Mrs. TaylorI love science! Everything about the world is interesting and never boring. I love to study plants, animals, insects, and people. My favorite subjects are my students who are the most unique organisms on the planet! Categories |