Spheroid facts for kids
A spheroid is a special shape that looks a lot like a sphere, but it's not perfectly round. You can imagine a spheroid as being created by spinning an ellipse (which is like a stretched circle) around one of its main lines. This makes it a type of ellipsoid where two of its measurements are the same.
Think of it like this: if you take a circle and stretch it in one direction, you get an ellipse. If you then spin that ellipse around its longest or shortest line, you get a spheroid!
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What Are the Types of Spheroids?
While a perfect sphere is also a type of spheroid, most spheroids are not perfectly round. They come in two main types:
Oblate Spheroid
An oblate spheroid is a shape that is flattened at its poles and bulges at its middle, like a squashed ball. Imagine a sphere that has been slightly flattened from the top and bottom.
- Many spinning celestial objects, like planets, are oblate spheroids. This happens because as they spin, a force called centrifugal force pushes material outwards at their equator, making them wider in the middle.
- Our own planet, Earth, is an oblate spheroid! It's slightly wider around the equator than it is from pole to pole.
Prolate Spheroid
A prolate spheroid is the opposite. It's stretched out at its poles, like a rugby ball or an American football. Imagine a sphere that has been pulled from its top and bottom.
- These shapes are less common in nature for large celestial objects.
Spheroids in Space
Most large objects in space, like planets and stars, are not perfect spheres. Because they spin, they tend to become oblate spheroids. The faster an object spins, the more flattened it becomes at its poles and the more it bulges at its equator.
Related pages
Images for kids
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An oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles.
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A prolate spheroid, stretched at the poles.
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The planet Jupiter is an oblate spheroid with a flattening of 0.06487
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A rugby ball is an example of a prolate spheroid.
See also
In Spanish: Esferoide para niños
