• Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    The difference in diameter between the pole and the equator is only about 26 miles.

    7926 miles vs 7900 miles

    So a difference of about 0.03%

    Yeah I’d say that’s pretty spherical

    Edit: Rereading this it comes of a bit rougher than I intended. Basically what I’m saying is something can be spherical without being a perfect sphere, infact if to be a sphere (in common usage of the word) only applied to perfect examples of a sphere than nothing would be a sphere. Definitions are pretty wishy-washy a lot of the times, especially when it comes to describing the world as it is.

    Earth is an oblique spheroid, technically. But calling it a sphere is true enough to observers that I’d say it still counts.