What is the true shape of the Earth, a question that lurks in the minds of the most curious and that has no simple answer. To talk about the Earth we could need thousands of words, there is a lot of information about our planet but at the same time there is still a lot to discover, which will open new conversations that could be endless. The Earth is our home and we know that it was formed more than 4.5 billion years ago, along with the Sun and our solar system.
Earth Features
Credits: ESA
The true shape of the Earth
Contrary to what we normally think, the Earth does not have a perfect spherical shape, but rather its shape has a slightly squashed appearance at the top and bottom and a little widened from left to right, so we could say that the shape of The Earth is more similar to the geometric figure of a geoid.
The geoid is a physical model created with the intention of representing the true shape of Earth, it is the surface of zero altitude level, which coincides with the average surface of the oceans in equilibrium prolonged below the continents and with the same gravity at all points, for this reason it is used as a reference to determine the elevation of the terrain. This shape is only possible to see when the Earth is observed from a distant point in space.