The shape of the Earth is not exactly round or circular; as a matter of fact, it’s slightly spherical.Earth is called a blue planet, and 29.2% of its surface consists of land. Comprising of continents and islands, and the rest of the surface of the Earth, which is 70.8%, is full of water, mostly in the form of rivers, lakes, ocean, and sea.The planet Earth orbits around the Sun and this revolution cause the change of seasons. The axis of Earth’s rotation around the Sun is a little tilted in its orbital plane. In addition to revolution, the Earth also rotates on its axis, which causes the change in days and night.Earth has a gravitational force of attraction, which interacts with other celestial objects in space, especially the moon, and is called Earth’s gravity. This gravitational force is responsible for tides formed in oceans and weather changes. The atmosphere of the Earth’s surface consists mostly of oxygen and nitrogen. The hypothetical line that divides Earth and the sky is called horizon, and Earth has two main types of horizons: the celestial horizon and Earth-sky horizons.An imaginary line divides Earth into Northern and Southern Hemispheres and is called Earth’s equator. The North Pole and the South Pole make up the Earth’s polar regions and are located opposite each other. The North Pole is located right in the middle of the Arctic Ocean and is called the Arctic region. In contrast, the pole to the south is called the Antarctic region as it comprises the huge Antarctic continent, vastly surrounded by its oceans.If you like reading about the shape of Earth, you should read on to know more and find out the answer to whether the shape of Earth is geoid. We have a lot of curious questions that have been answered for you in detail. Find below answers to questions like ‘who said the Earth is round for the first time’ or ‘who proves that the Earth is round’. You could also check out our other articles on Shoemaker-Levy 9 and spheres of Earth.What is the real shape of the Earth and why?The shape of the Earth is not exactly round or circle; it is, in fact, spherical or spheroid.Earth has a little bulging around the equator, owing to its rotation and slightly flattening around the poles, making its shape more like an oblate spheroid and not perfectly round or circle. The diameter of Earth towards the equator is 27 mi (43.4 km) greater than the pole-to-pole diameter. The Earth is round in shape due to its gravity. Its top and bottom are both round and curved. It is believed that Pythagoras was the first to say that Earth was round, whereas Eratosthenes was the first to prove this.Is the shape of Earth geoid?Science experts employ geodesy, the science of measuring the shape, rotation, and gravitational force of the surface of the Earth to provide accurate measurements that show the Earth is round. However, even though the planet is a sphere, it is not a perfect sphere.The shape of the Earth according to science is geoid, and Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was the first to define Earth’s geoid shape. The planet appears similar to a blue marble containing rich white swirls with some tints of green, brown, yellow from the point of space. The blue part is the water, which covers somewhere around 71% of the surface of Earth, whereas the white swirls are the clouds found mostly along the polar region or poles. The tints of green, brown, and yellow are the land-mass(s) of the Earth, comprising of rock, plateaus, canyons, and mountains.How is the shape of the Earth affected by its rotation?Rotation is the spinning of the Earth on its axis from west to east, and it causes the day and night.The speed of rotation also affects the shape of the Earth as due to rotation, a centrifugal force is developed, which causes the North and South Poles to be a little flattened and the center point to be a little bulged. The rotation also affects the movement of water in the oceans as it deflects the tides. It also affects the movement of the winds as the ocean currents, and the winds deflect towards the right point in the Northern Hemisphere and towards the left point in the Southern Hemisphere.How is climate affected by the shape of the Earth?The Earth is spherical shaped, and because of this, the areas in between the equator and the poles benefit from the energy of the Sun to different extents over the year. The ones on the equator receive the largest levels of this energy from the Sun, and this energy proceeds towards the North and South Poles. This leads to the difference in temperature of atmospheric masses from the poles to the equator.The areas between the tropics and the equator receive more energy from the Sun over the year, becoming warmer, thereby giving rise to the ‘Warm Tropical Belt’. Conversely, the areas between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer and the poles stay much cooler as they receive less energy from the sun, thereby becoming the ‘Moderate Belt’.The areas towards the poles lie at a much sharper level than the other zones, so they have a larger surface area to warm, making them areas with a ‘Polar Climatic’ condition.If Earth had a different shape, this difference in climate and weather would have been different. Therefore, this is how the shape of the Earth affects the climate.Did You Know…The continents of the Earth always keep on moving, and about 250 years ago, they were just small parts of one big continent called the Pangea. Because they kept shifting, they spread out and fragmented into various smaller pieces. Earth’s gravitation is not exactly the same everywhere. It is different from region to region, and these differences are called gravity anomalies. The shape of the Earth is not specifically round but ellipsoid. Space, however, is not round; rather, it is infinite and expanding in all directions.The Earth’s mass is somewhere around 1.32×1025 lb (5.97×1024 kg), and this mass is mostly comprised of iron, silicon, magnesium, and oxygen. Beyond the mass, Earth’s interior crust is active, comprising of a solid iron core, a convective mantle crust that influences tectonic plates, and a liquid outer core that leads to the creation of Earth’s magnetic field. Moon is Earth’s only natural satellite, apart from various other artificial satellites that have been sent to space to orbit Earth’s axis for multiple reasons. Most of these satellites monitor changes around the surface of the Earth.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! 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The shape of the Earth is not exactly round or circular; as a matter of fact, it’s slightly spherical.
