# How much more oblate was the Earth 4 billion years ago?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-more-oblate-was-the-earth-4-billion-years-ago/813786>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 7, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-more-oblate-was-the-earth-4-billion-years-ago/813786 "2018-05-07T22:13:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-more-oblate-was-the-earth-4-billion-years-ago/813786/1 "2018-05-07T22:13:48Z")

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The Earth is an oblate spheroid due to the gravitational attraction of the Moon and the Earth’s own rotation. 4 billion years ago the Earth rotated twice as fast and the interior was a lot more fluid and the Moon was much closer, so how did all that affect the Earth’s shape? How about the shape of Earth’s atmosphere?