The Earth’s rotation causes a flattening at the poles, so its shape is often modeled as an oblate spheroid rather than a sphere (see Exercise 53 for terminology). One of the models used by global positioning satellites is the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS-84), which treats the Earth as an oblate spheroid whose equatorial radius is 6378.1370 km and whose polar radius (the distance from the Earth’s center to the poles) is 6356.5231 km. Use the WGS-84 model to find an equation for the surface of the Earth relative to the coordinate system shown in the ac-companying figure.
The Earth’s rotation causes a flattening at the poles, so its shape is often modeled as an oblate spheroid rather than a sphere (see Exercise 53 for terminology). One of the models used by global positioning satellites is the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS-84), which treats the Earth as an oblate spheroid whose equatorial radius is 6378.1370 km and whose polar radius (the distance from the Earth’s center to the poles) is 6356.5231 km. Use the WGS-84 model to find an equation for the surface of the Earth relative to the coordinate system shown in the ac-companying figure.
The Earth’s rotation causes a flattening at the poles, so its shape is often modeled as an oblate spheroid rather than a sphere (see Exercise 53 for terminology). One of the models used by global positioning satellites is the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS-84), which treats the Earth as an oblate spheroid whose equatorial radius is 6378.1370 km and whose polar radius (the distance from the Earth’s center to the poles) is 6356.5231 km. Use the WGS-84 model to find an equation for the surface of the Earth relative to the coordinate system shown in the ac-companying figure.
System that uses coordinates to uniquely determine the position of points. The most common coordinate system is the Cartesian system, where points are given by distance along a horizontal x-axis and vertical y-axis from the origin. A polar coordinate system locates a point by its direction relative to a reference direction and its distance from a given point. In three dimensions, it leads to cylindrical and spherical coordinates.
University Calculus: Early Transcendentals (4th Edition)
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