Totally Round?

Is the earth a perfect round? You might be surprised at this!

At a glance, the universe looks pretty well-organized, with perfectly spherical planets orbiting in concentric circles around a glowing orb.

But things are a lot more complicated in reality. For example, while our Earth looks like a sphere when viewed from space, it’s actually an irregularly shaped allipsoid (think a flattened sphere) because of the centrifugal force of tis rotation. And its weirdness doesn’t stop there: The precise shape of the Earth is also changing all the time.

Many things affect the shape of the Earth. The drifting of tectonic plates form entirely new landmasses, and the Earth’s crust is still rebounding  from the last Ice Age 16,000 years ago. While these minute adjustments go mostly unseen, other shape-altering events — such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and asteroid strikes (RIP to our Cretaceous friends) — are hard to miss. But the Earth also changes shape by the hour, and humans can watch it happen … sort of. Every day (roughly), the Earth experiences two periods of high and low tide, where the gravitational effects of the moon and sun  affect the movement of our oceans, and as a result, the shape of the planet, if only temporarily.

So even if the Earth’s shape isn’t exactly perfect, it’s certainly a lot more interesting.  Thanks, Interesting Facts.