Spheroid reasoned that Jupiter and Earth are oblate spheroids owing to their centrifugal force. Earth's diverse cartographic and geodetic systems are based on reference ellipsoids, all of which are oblate. A science-fiction example of an extremely oblate planet is Mesklin from Hal Clement's novel "Mission of Gravity". The prolate spheroid is the shape of the ball in several sports, such as in rugby football. Several moons of the Solar System approximate prolate spheroids in shape, though they are actually triaxial ellipsoids. Examples are Saturn's satellites Mimas, Enceladus, and Tethys and Uranus' satellite Miranda. In contrast to being distorted into oblate spheroids
Formation and evolution of the Solar System Formation and evolution of the Solar System The formation and evolution of the Solar System began 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed. This model, known as the nebular hypothesis was first developed in the 18th century by Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, and Pierre-Simon Laplace. Its subsequent development has interwoven a variety of scientific disciplines including