GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Detailed explanation-1: -The gravitational potential of a perfectly uniform sphere would be equal at all points on its surface. However, the Earth is not a perfect sphere; it is an oblate spheroid, and has a smaller radius at the poles than at the equator.

Detailed explanation-2: -A geoid is also called an oblate spheroid.

Detailed explanation-3: -Even though the sun rotates relatively slowly-only once every 27 days or so-it, too, is oblate, says Jeffrey Kuhn, a solar physicist at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy in Pukalani.