Built up in layers inside wooden framing, it took the shape of a doorknob the size of a two-car garage a flattened graphite ellipsoid 25 ft.
This establishes that the earth is not a sphere but an ellipsoid, slightly flattened at the poles.
They helped explain oddities in the nucleus' behavior by showing that its myriad components spun and vibrated so as to distort the nucleus into an unexpected ellipsoid, rather .
WIRED Space Photo of the Day: Moon Shadow on Mars A view of Gusev crater on Mars, the landing site of NASA's now-defunct Spirit rover. The European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite captures this amazing view of the area from space, with the long ellipsoid shadow of Mars' moon Phobos racing across the bottom during a local eclipse.
Aug. 24, 2013 - Wired News