# Why is the Earth shaped like a sphere and not any other shape: cube, prism? [duplicate]

Why is the earth shaped like a sphere and not any other shape: cube, prism?

• Have you done a Google search for why is the Earth round? – John Rennie Jun 20 '14 at 14:15
• @Ankush You cannot completely change the core of a question through edits. If you want to ask a new question, then ask a new question. – Jim Jun 20 '14 at 17:12
• – Qmechanic Mar 29 '16 at 9:42

What else can we understand when we understand gravity? Everyone knows the earth is round. Why is the earth round? That is easy; it is due to gravitation. The earth can be understood to be round merely because everything attracts everything else and so it has attracted itself together as far as it can! If we go even further, the earth is not exactly a sphere because it is rotating and this brings in centrifugal effects which tend to oppose gravity near equator. It turns out that earth should be elliptical, and we even get the right shape for the ellipse. We can thus deduce that the sun, the moon, and the earth should be (nearly) spheres, just from law of gravitation.$_1$
Credits: $_1$Feynman lectures on Physics-Page No.7-5. Page numbers are subjected to change depending on the editions.