Other Definitions
oblate (dict)
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Oblate - Oblate also refers to a member of the Roman Catholic religious order of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, or in some cases to a lay or religious person who has officially associated himself (or herself) with a monastic community such as the Benedictines for reasons of personal enrichment without actually assuming a monastic lifestyle.
An oblate spheroid is an ellipsoid having a shorter axis and two equal longer axes. Oblateness is a measure for a planet that is a spheroid in shape, bulging outward in the center due to its rotation. Effectively the (fictitious) centrifugal force fights against gravity causing the planet to look more like a sphere stretched at the equator. Mathematically, oblateness may be defined as -
where the equatorial radius and is the polar radius. The approximation is valid in the case of a fluid planet of uniform density; it is a function of the Newtonian constant of gravitation , the rotation period and the density . Oblateness
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