why is the earth flattened at the poles?
481150
the earth spins at 1500 mph.  If you take a ball and spin it extreemly fast you will find that the center of the ball will grow and the poles will flatten.  It is like driving a car very fast.  The higher up ion speed you go the lower to the ground it will become.  I has to do with Volocity.
198471
The Earth’s rotation axis is not perpendicular to the plane in which it orbits the Sun. It's offset by 23.5 degrees. This tilt, or obliquity, explains why we have seasons and why places above the Arctic Circle have 24-hour darkness in winter and constant sunlight in the summer.\n\nBut the angle is not constant – it is currently decreasing from a maximum of 24 degrees towards a minimum of 22.5 degrees. This variation goes in a 40,000-year cycle.
638327
Because, as the earth is a sphere (or almost one), the middle is the fattest part and the poles are narrow.
1102975
Because gravity pulls equally in all directions.\nAs soon as the materials that the earth is made of began to gather together under self-gravity, the center pulled equally in all directions.  As heat from friction and radioactivity made much of the early earth molten, gravity pulled it into the most efficient shape -- a sphere.  Because of the earth's rotation and centrifugal force, it's not quite a perfect sphere -- it bulges a bit at the equator and is slightly flattened at the poles -- but it's simply gravity doing what it does naturally.  It's why all large bodies are in the shape of a sphere.
17266
Neither.  It is more of an oval thanks to the strong magnetic pull at the *top* and *bottom* (North and South Poles) of the earth which also have to do with gravity.  Were these features any different, the fowl of the air would not know where to go in the winter.
696568
They are results of the centrifugal and centripetal forces of the earth crust. This results faulting and folding of the earth's surface.
926113
The Earth is tilted at an angle of about twenty three and a half degrees.  This is the reason why North and Magnetic poles are not at the same place.  \n\nAnyway, in the Northern winter, the North Pole is angled away from the Sun, with the South Pole therefore being angled towards the Sun.  The result is 24 hours night in the north, 24 hours day light in the south.  This is the southern summer.\nNow remember that the Earth maintains this angle throughout its orbit.\nSix months later, the Earth is on the other side of its orbit around the Sun.  Still maintaining the same tilt, now the North Pole is receiving 24 hour day light, and the South Pole is in darkness.  Northern summer, southern winter.\n\nThe Arctic and Antarctic circles mark the limit of this 24 hour daylight, and the Tropic of Cancer (North) and the Tropic of Capricorn (South) mark the limits of the maximum travel of the Sun at it appears in the northern and southern skies.\n\nAt the Spring and Autumn exquinox, the Earth is such that the Poles are receiving equal amounts of sunlight.  Equinox means "equal night".  \n\nI down know any particular websites but try the NOAA and BBC weather sites.\n\nADDITION: To Glenn Blaylock.  Thank you very much for the correction.  I'll read up on my error.
821321
All the mass on the earth is being pulled in by gravity, you and me included. the more mass you have the more an object pulls towards itself and others (basically heavy things have a sort of pull, so when you are by a huge mountain you are actually being pulled towards it) \n\nThe easiest way of all the mass to be pulled together is in a sphere, there are no corners and its cannot be compressed without other areas moving further away from the centre, so theoreticlaly the earth SHOULD be a sphere\n\nBUT it isn't; due to its rotation it is fatter than it is tall, because of mass being moved out by centrifugal force. \n\nhope this helps
12149
****Edit based on further details from asker *****\nSailing around the world is sailing within the sperhical confines of our planet.  If there were no athmosphere, or gravity, then we would simply fall off the earth.  However, as gravity is pushing us down, and is affecting the winds, ect within the athmosphere, we are bound to the surface of the water.  \n\nEven though a sphere is included in the define of spheroid, it is a type of spheroid, not the inclusive answer.  The fact that gravity pushes down on us from all around, mainly because the earth is spinning so fast, and other more complicated reasons; the sphereoid holds whatever is on it's surface down to adhere to the confines and shape of such a surface.\n\nEven if the world were flat, or a flattned sphereoid, we woudln't fall off, instead, we'd loop around to the otherside becasue gravity wouldn't allow us to actually 'drop' off the side of the cliff.  The inverse gravity on the other side of the plane would pull us to it's confine, or surface.\n\nSo, there's your answer.  Sorry i didn't get it more clear the first time.\n\nMathamatically you can say that gravity pushes us from all around using a tangent direction.  That means that no matter the point you are on this earth, gravity is pushing down on you within the same confines as any other like region.  As to falling off the earth, if gravity didn't exist, we wouldn't 'fall' exactly; we would more likely be thrown or float off the earth (thrown if the world is spinning).\n\n****End Edit.******\n\nThe world indeed is a sphere, but it is not a perfect sphere, due to the rotation of the earth around it's axis, as well as the rotation of the earth around the sun (central axis), the spinning and speed of the planet make it more of a spehere that jiggles, sometimes squeezed, and sometimes elongated.  But, not by much :) Just a bit :)
955371
The earth has an electromagnetic field that is generated by the earth's core.  The core is a ball of hot liquid iron and nickel spinning around, and the spinning of the metal generates the magnetic field. \nIt surrounds the earth, connecting to the earth at the north and south poles.\nIs that what you mean by "themagenet in earth not found in space?"\nIf that's not what you mean, perhaps you need to reword your question into more understandable English.
441367
Well, it doesn't keep tilting -- it remains pretty much at 23 degrees.  Scientists haven't quite made up their minds yet as to exactly how the solar system formed, and especially the Earth; but most agree that it started out as a huge cloud of dust and gas.  Over billions of years, gravity made this cloud start to condense into spinning lumps.\n\nProbably the lump that became the earth just happened to be spinning around an axis of 23 degrees, and it kept that position as the earth solidified and cooled.\n\nWhat makes the changes in the seasons is not that the earth moves closer to the sun, but because the rays of the sun hit the earth at a slant.  Again, the axis doesn't change, it keeps pointing the same way with respect to the stars.  But as the earth goes around the sun, the north pole first is facing in the direction of the sun (summer); then 6 months later the earth is at the other side of its orbit, and the north pole is pointing away (winter).  Because of this (if you get a globe and a lamp, you can see how this works), during winter more of the north half (called the hemisphere) is in nighttime, and from where you're standing the sun seems lower in the sky, and the days are shorter.  During this time, though, the south pole is pointing towards the sun, and the south half of the earth (the southern hemisphere) gets more sun, and for them it's actually summer.  In Australia, Christmas is in the middle of summer!\n\nNow, actually I just lied a little bit.  The earth's axis DOES change over time.  If you've ever played with a spinning top, you'll notice that the top wobbles slowly, its axis of spin going around in a little circle.  Scientists call this "precession," and the earth does the same thing.  The axis of the earth wobbles around in a circle that takes about 23 thousand years to complete.  Right now, the north pole points almost straight at the star Polaris (the "North Star"), but after a while -- a very long while -- the north pole will start to point elsewhere in the sky.  230 centuries from now, the axis will have made a full circle and will be pointing at Polaris again.
1047977
Have you stopped beating your wife yet? The way you pose the question is not sincere -- you've already interspersed conjecture. There ARE 4 corners to the earth when you look at the REAL earth from space. They are not sharp 90% angles, but nevertheless, the earth is not perfectly spherical. Check out DrDino.com and watch 28 hours of creation facts. There are far more holes in any other explanation for earth's beginning, just check them out. There were no clouds prior to the flood, it was a canopy of water. Similar, but not the same, Saturn has an ice halo around it. Earth had a complete canopy above it which regulated it temperature perfectly. Much thicker and integral than the ozone layer today. Upon God's judgment, God caused this canopy to colapse, forever altering the tropical paradise type atmosphere which allowed all manner of life to flourish, even at the poles. Animals with fresh produce still undigested have been found at the poles, frozen. Why? So God could be glorified thousands of years later when man would examine such evidence. Chances are God used a huge deep-space frozen comet or asteroid to knock the earth slightly out of a true orbit around the sun, the collision resulting in the collapse of the canopy AND cause the earth to tilt. If it were frozen nitrogen, it would quickly freeze even the largest of animals in the area the debris hit the earth. Keep in mind, God gives answers to the humble and the contrite in spirit, not to the proud.
35785
The earth is tilted at approximately a 12 degree angle, therefore the geographic poles are literally at the top but the magnetic poles are 12 degrees tilted.
1005522
The earth's magnetic poles move constantly, and on some days the North magnetic pole moves by as much as 80 km (50 miles). To see a map of this go here:\nhttp://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/daily_mvt_nmp_e.php\n\nThe short term wandering of the magnetic poles is caused by the Sun, which emits charged particles that disturb the Earth's magnetic field. Long term movement of the magnetic poles is due to changes within the Earth's molten core, which is thought to generate an electric field that in turn forms the magnetic field. At present the North Magnetic Pole is moving more than 40 km per year towards Siberia. To see the map:\nhttp://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/long_mvt_nmp_e.php\n\nThe magnetic field of the Earth has undergone many complete reversals. The most recent reversal was about 730,000 years before present. Here is a timescale:\nhttp://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/reversals_e.php\n\nIn addition to the reversals, the Earth's magnetic field has what are called excursions. These are wide variations in the strength of the field and in the direction of the magnetic force. On average, these excursions are less than 50,000 years in duration. \n\nThere have been many recorded episodes of climate change, both warming and cooling, over geologic time, and so far there has been no observed correlation between changes in the Earth's magnetic polarity or 'pole shift'  with any sort of climate change. There are some scientists that proposed that changes in the Sun's magnetic field might be causing an increase in Solar wind, which in turn would affect the Earth's atmosphere and might alter the cloud formation level. If this effect reduced lower level stratus clouds, it would cause global warming, but if it reduced high level cirrus clouds the effect would be cooling. However this possible climate effect caused by the Sun's magnetic field has nothing to do with Earth's magnetic field.
1175270
The earth is round due to its rotation and gravity.  The sphere is a perfect structure.  Think about it, the bubble forms a skin and holds its shape.  Hurricanes are circular, so are whirpools, dustdevils, tornados.
145985
the world is roughly spherical, (a ball) and the reason for this is because something as big as earth pulls itself toogether so that everything falls to the center of the sphere, if there were a substantially eneven spot on the earth (let's say a huge spike 40 miles high) it would most likely fall down into place. I magine a bunch of rocks that are pulling themselves together one rock sticks to the other you have two rocks keep on going now you have three so on and so on. If you take a bunch of weird shape magnets they'll stick together in the shape of a ball because they'll all want to be as close as possible and the only way to do that is a sphere since every point in the surface to the center will give you the same distance. Same as if you pushed clay from every side with equal force it'd form a ball.\n\nDUDE!!! PICK A BEST ANSWER!!!!
337385
the sun directly casts it rays on the equator. the earth is tilted at a slight angle, so, that means that one of the poles are sometimes farther away than the other, but the equator always faces the sun and gets the full force