Globe - it would seem, what could be simpler? Due to natural causes, the matter that served as the building material for our planet gathered into one lump and gradually formed a regular sphere, and irregularities arose later due to tectonic processes. But there is a mistake in the very name of the form of our planet. Even if we raze all the heights and fill up all the lowlands, the Earth will not be a ball. Geographers and astronomers have come up with a name for the ball flattened at the poles - the geoid. In Greek, it means "like the earth." That is, the Earth has a shape similar to the Earth. This is butter oil.
Compression at the poles has not only the globe, but also any astronomical body of sufficient mass, rotating around its axis. However, "geoid" is a specific, professional term. In everyday life, mass media and popular literature, another name is usually used - the globe. Considering that our planet is flattened at the poles, the circumference of the globe,drawn through the poles and along the equator will be different. The circle drawn through the poles will be more than forty thousand seven kilometers, and the circle along the equator - forty thousand seventy five kilometers. On a planetary scale, the difference of sixty-eight kilometers is insignificant, but for some calculations it matters. Have you ever wondered why most spaceports are located in southern latitudes? That's exactly why they are.
The globe is not uniform. Hidden beneath the relatively thin crust is the mantle, a viscous thick layer that extends to a depth of nearly 3,000 kilometers. Below is the core, which consists of two parts: the upper one is liquid and the inner one is solid. Temperatures in the center of the Earth reach six thousand degrees Celsius. Approximately this temperature reigns on the surface of the Sun.
The surface of the Earth is extremely heterogeneous. Not only that, two-thirds are occupied by the oceans. So also the remaining land is not everywhere suitable for normal living. Although humanity has adapted to live even in the adverse conditions of the Far North and the African deserts, the peoples living there could not create a single great civilization. For one simple reason: they spent all their energy on fighting the harsh nature and maintaining a minimum standard of living. Where is there to think about expansion or the creation of material, cultural or scientific values!
The population of the globe is distributed very unevenly over the surface of the planet. Back in antiquetime most people lived in tropical, subtropical regions and in the southern part of the temperate zone. It was the peoples living there who managed to create civilizations, which we continue to admire and study to this day. Some achievements of the ancients have remained incomprehensible to us, although their technical capabilities cannot be compared with ours.
According to the "Gaia hypothesis", the globe is one superorganism, and everything that exists on its surface and in its bowels is a system of metabolism, respiration and thermoregulation. The birth and death of civilizations, earthquakes, floods and typhoons are part of one process called the "Life of the Earth". Is this true, or have scientists, as it has happened more than once, done a great job? Let's wait and see…
