Why is the Earth a sphere?
2 answers:
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<span>Large bodies of material will naturally become approximately spherical in shape because gravity pulls everything towards the centre of mass, and the best shape for getting all the particles that make up the body (like all the particles of rock and iron the earth is made of) close to the centre is a sphere. It's the lowest energy configuration, and that's what everything strives to be in.
So, opposing this gravitational force is the ability of the material that makes up the body to support itself. Hence why on the hard surface of the earth, we can still have mountains like the Himalayas - gravity at the surface isn't strong enough to crush these flat.
The rotation of the earth causes it to assume a slightly squashed shape too, due to centrifugal force, which pushes material outwards - more so at the equator, which is furthest from the axis of rotation. Any rotating object will have some degree of squashing as a result.
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<span>Large bodies of material will naturally become approximately spherical in shape because gravity pulls everything towards the centre of mass, and the best shape for getting all the particles that make up the body (like all the particles of rock and iron the earth is made of) close to the centre is a sphere. It's the lowest energy configuration, and that's what everything strives to be in.
So, opposing this gravitational force is the ability of the material that makes up the body to support itself. Hence why on the hard surface of the earth, we can still have mountains like the Himalayas - gravity at the surface isn't strong enough to crush these flat.
The rotation of the earth causes it to assume a slightly squashed shape too, due to centrifugal force, which pushes material outwards - more so at the equator, which is furthest from the axis of rotation. Any rotating object will have some degree of squashing as a result.
</span>
I Hope my answer has come to your Help. Thank you for posting your question here in
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