Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Lesson 3: Earth's Shape
- Oblate Spheroid
- oblate spheroid - a sphere that is slightly flattened
- Earth is slightly flattened at the poles
- Earth bulges as bit at the equator
- Because of Earth's rotation, Earth is an oblate spheroid
- Looks Flat
- Because it is very large
- Round
- Photographs of Earth all show Earth's spherical shape
- We notice the changing position of the sun and stars as
we move great distances over Earth
- An object's weight depends on distance to Earth's core,
since weight doesn't change in different places, each
point on earth is equidistant to to core
- Diameter and Circumference
- Circumference - the distance around a circle
- Equatorial Circumference of Earth = 40,076 kilometers
- Polar Circumference of Earth = 40,008 kilometers
- Diameter - the distance through the center of an object
- Polar Diameter of Earth = 12,714 kilometers
- Equatorial Diameter of Earth = 12,756 kilometers
- If Earth were a perfect sphere the Equatorial and Polar values would be equal