Flattening is a measure of the compression of a circle or sphere along a diameter to form an ellipse or an ellipsoid of revolution (spheroid) respectively. Other terms used are ellipticity, or oblateness. The usual notation for flattening is f and its definition in terms of the semi-axes of the resulting ellipse or ellipsoid is f l a t t e n i n g = f = ...

Thoughout the country, tens of millions of schoolchildren are starting a new academic year. However, instead of throwing on their backpacks and heading to receive in-person lessons from their teachers,

As in-person learning continues to begin in schools throughout the county, Denton County Public Health Director Matt Richardson said the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 is slowing in

There are currently 57 active cases at the college, President Jeffrey Docking said.

Pressing out pizza dough, flattening meat are just some of the uses of this multitasking tool.

A sobering part of the coronavirus pandemic means thinking about the unthinkable. While it was easy to put estate planning off when our days were filled with work, school and social obligations, the rapid spread of the coronavirus has changed that. Making sure your affairs are in order while staying home and flattening the curve is not only important for those around you, but a good way to cope with anxiety in a time of uncertainty. Here are five steps you can take to get your affairs in order. Make a will This is a way to ensure that after your death your assets go to the people you designate. While more complicated financial situations might require consulting a lawyer, in most cases you can prepare a simple will using an online service. Most take less than an hour to complete with a little preparation. Create an inventory of your possessions; note who gets what; determine how to pay debts; designate an executor; and if you have young children, name a guardian. California law does not require a will to be notarized, but you must sign it in front of two witnesses (neither should be a beneficiary). Make sure to use proper physical distancing and safety protocols as outlined by health officials. You also have the option of leaving a so-called holographic will in California. This is a legally binding document handwritten, signed and dated by the person leaving the will. No witnesses are required. If you already have a will in place, use this time to review it and make any amendments. Assign powers of attorney These forms...

Earth's circumference is the distance around Earth. Measured around the Equator, it is 40,075.017 km (24,901.461 mi). Measured around the poles, the circumference is 40,007.863 km (24,859.734 mi).Measurement of Earth's circumference has been important to navigation since ancient times. The first known scientific measurement and calculation was done by Eratosthenes, who achieved a great degree of precision in his computation. Treating the Earth as a sphere, its circumference would be its single most important measurement. Earth deviates from spherical by about 0.3%, as characterized by flattening. In modern times, Earth's circumference has been used to define fundamental units of measurement of length: the nautical mile in the seventeenth century and the metre in the eighteenth. Earth's polar circumference is very near to 21,600 nautical miles because the nautical mile was intended to express one minute of latitude (see meridian arc), which is 21,600 partitions of the polar circumference (that is 60 minutes × 360 degrees). The polar circumference is also close to 40,000 kilometres because the metre was originally defined to be one...

A circle of latitude or line of latitude on Earth is an abstract east–west small circle connecting all locations around Earth (ignoring elevation) at a given latitude coordinate line. Circles of latitude are often called parallels because they are parallel to each other; that is, planes that contain any of these circles never intersect each other. A location's position along a circle of latitude is given by its longitude. Circles of latitude are unlike circles of longitude, which are all great circles with the centre of Earth in the middle, as the circles of latitude get smaller as the distance from the Equator increases. Their length can be calculated by a common sine or cosine function. For example, the 60th parallel north or south is half as long as the Equator (disregarding Earth's minor flattening by 0.335%), stemming from ...

Range measurements from the lidar instrument carried aboard the Clementine spacecraft have been used to produce an accurate global topographic model of the Moon. This paper discusses the function of the lidar; the acquisition, processing, and filtering of observations to produce a global topographic model; and the determination of parameters that define the fundamental shape of the Moon. Our topographic model: a 72nd degree and order spherical harmonic expansion of lunar radii, is designated Goddard Lunar Topography Model 2 (GLTM 2). This topographic field has an absolute vertical accuracy of approximately 100 m and a spatial resolution of 2.5 deg. The field shows that the Moon can be described as a sphere with maximum positive and negative deviations of approx. 8 km, both occurring on the farside, in the areas of the Korolev and South Pole-Aitken (S.P.-Aitken) basins. The amplitude spectrum of the topography shows more power at longer wavelengths as compared to previous models, owing to more complete sampling of the surface, particularly the farside. A comparison of elevations derived from the Clementine lidar to control point elevations from the Apollo laser altimeters indicates that measured relative topographic heights generally agree to within approx. 200 in over the maria. While the major axis of the lunar gravity field is aligned in the Earth-Moon direction, the major axis of topography is displaced from this line by approximately 10 deg to the cast and intersects the farside 24 deg north of the equator. The magnitude of impact basin topography is greater than the lunar flattening (approx. 2 km) and equatorial ellipticity (approx. 800 m), which imposes a significant challenge to interpreting the lunar figure. The floors of mare basins are shown to lie close to an equipotential surface, while the floors of unflooded large basins, except for S.P.-Aitken, lie above this equipotential. The radii of basin floors are thus consistent with a hydrostatic mechanism for the absence of significant farside maria except for S.P.-Aitken, whose depth and lack of mare require significant internal compositional and/or thermal heterogeneity. A macroscale surface roughness map shows that roughness at length scales of 101 - 102 km correlates with elevation and surface age.