The most accepted description of the Earth's shape is that of a planet slightly flattened at the poles. Still, most people tend to imagine it as a smooth sphere, without protrusions or imperfections. In the United States, in fact, the Earth is often called "Blue Marble" ("Blue Marble", in free translation).
3D model shows the true shape of the Earth; look
The most accepted description of the Earth's shape is that of a planet slightly flattened at the poles. Still, most people tend to imagine it as a smooth sphere, without protrusions or imperfections. In the United...
If this is also the image you have of our planet, you will probably be surprised by a 3D model released by NASA. The model, known as a geoid, is described by the space agency as "an equipotential surface that can be considered the shape that the surface of the oceans would take under the exclusive influence of the Earth's gravitational field."
In other words, the model presented in the video above represents what the shape of the Earth would be like if it were determined only by gravity and the planet's rotation, without the influence of factors such as winds and tides.
NASA explains that, using data from the GOCO06s gravity model, researchers exaggerated the geoid's height variations by a factor of 10,000 times to make differences in the Earth's gravitational surface more visible.
As an example, the agency highlights a peak equivalent to around 85 meters near Iceland and a depression approximately 106 meters below average south of India.
According to NASA, this model is important for understanding how gravity acts differently in each region of the Earth's surface and shows that the planet is much more complex than it appears at first glance.
The agency also reports that the geoid was constructed based on more than a billion observations collected over 15 years by 19 satellites.
Source: Noticias ao Minuto
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