Earth radius

Earth radius is the distance from the center of Earth to a point on its surface. Its value ranges from 6,378 km (3,963 mi) at the equator to 6,357 km (3,950 mi) at a pole. Earth radius is a term of art in astronomy and geophysics and a unit of measurement in both. It is symbolized as R⊕ in astronomy. In other contexts, it is denoted R E {displaystyle R_{E}} or sometimes R e E N {displaystyle {mathcal {R}}_{mathrm {eE} }^{mathrm {N} }} .Earth's rotation, internal density variations, and external tidal forces cause its shape to deviate systematically from a perfect sphere. Local topography increases the variance, resulting in a surface of profound complexity. Our descriptions of Earth's surface must be simpler than reality in order to be tractable. Hence, we create models to approximate characteristics of Earth's surface, generally relying on the simplest model that suits the need.The following radii are fixed and do not include a variable location dependence. They are derived from the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS-84) standard ellipsoid.The distance from the Earth's center to a point on the spheroid surface at geodetic latitude φ is:The Earth can be modeled as a sphere in many ways. This section describes the common ways. The various radii derived here use the notation and dimensions noted above for the Earth as derived from the WGS-84 ellipsoid; namely,The best local spherical approximation to the ellipsoid in the vicinity of a given point is the osculating sphere. Its radius equals the Gaussian radius of curvature as above, and its radial direction coincides with the ellipsoid normal direction. The center of the osculating sphere is offset from the center of the ellipsoid, but is at the center of curvature for the given point on the ellipsoid surface. This concept aids the interpretation of terrestrial and planetary radio occultation refraction measurements and in some navigation and surveillance applications.This table summarizes the accepted values of the Earth's radius.The first published reference to the Earth's size appeared around 350 BC, when Aristotle reported in his book On the Heavens that mathematicians had guessed the circumference of the Earth to be 400,000 stadia. Scholars have interpreted Aristotle's figure to be anywhere from highly accurate to almost double the true value. The first known scientific measurement and calculation of the circumference of the Earth was performed by Eratosthenes in about 240 BC. Estimates of the accuracy of Eratosthenes's measurement range from 0.5% to 17%. For both Aristotle and Eratosthenes, uncertainty in the accuracy of their estimates is due to modern uncertainty over which stadion length they meant.