- #1
Darwin
- 21
- 2
I happened to come upon the fact that gravity at the Earth's poles is slightly greater than at the equator because the oblate shape of the planet positions the poles closer to the center of Earth's mass. So if the Earth became a bit more oblate this differential would seemingly increase. Yet, there must be a limit to which such a phenomenon would persist. Taken to the extreme, if the Earth became more like a fat pancake there would be very little mass between the poles and quite a bit between any two antipodal points on the equator. So, if this notion holds any water, at what point of flattening (increasing oblateness) would the gravity equalize and the differential begin to reverse itself?