Flattening

The oblateness, ellipticity, or flattening of an oblate spheroid, or oblatum, is a measure of the "squashing" of the spheroid's Geographical pole, towards its equator. If $a$ is the distance from the spheroid center to the equator——the transverse radius——and $b$ the distance from the center to the pole——the conjugate radius——then $f\mbox{lattening}=\quad\frac{a-b}{a}\,\!$.

First, second and third flattening

The first, primary flattening, f, is the versine of the spheroid's angular eccentricity, $o\!\varepsilon\,\!$:

$o\!\varepsilon=\arccos\left(\frac{b}{s}\right)=2\arctan\left(\!\sqrt{\frac{a-b}{a+b}}\;\right);\,\!$

$f=\mbox{ver}(o\!\varepsilon)=2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)=1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon)=\frac{a-b}{a};\,\!$

• The flattening ratio for Earth is 1:298.257223563 (which corresponds to a radius difference of 21.385 km of the Earth radius 6378.137 - 6356.752 km) and would not be realized visually from space, since the difference represents only 0.335 %.
• The flattening of Jupiter (1:16) and Saturn (nearly 1:10), in contrast, can be seen even in a small telescope;
• Conversely, that of the Sun is less than 1:1000 and that of the Moon barely 1:900.

The amount of flattening depends on

• the relation between gravity and centrifugal force;

and in detail on

• size and density of the celestial body;
• the rotation of the planet or star;
• and the elasticity of the body.

There is also a second flattening, f' ,

$f'=\frac{\mbox{ver}(o\!\varepsilon)}{1-\mbox{ver}(o\!\varepsilon)} =\frac{2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)}{1-2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)}=\sec(o\!\varepsilon)-1 =\frac{1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon)}{\cos(o\!\varepsilon)} =\frac{a-b}{b};\,\!$

and a third flattening, f'' (more commonly denoted as "n" and first used in 1837 by Friedrich Bessel on calculation of meridian arc length), that is the squared half-angle tangent of $o\!\varepsilon\,\!$:

$f''=\frac{\mbox{ver}(o\!\varepsilon)}{\mbox{vrc}(o\!\varepsilon)} =\frac{\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)}{1-\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)} =\tan^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right) =\frac{1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon)}{1+\cos(o\!\varepsilon)} =\frac{a-b}{a+b}.\,\!$

Prolate valuations

The above formations apply to an ellipse and oblatum, which is an ellipse rotated about its polar, or conjugate, axis, resulting in $a>b\,\!$. If it is rotated about its equatorial, or transverse, axis, it is a prolate spheroid, or prolatum, where $b>a\,\!$.
With a prolatum, $a\,\!$ and $b\,\!$ are reversed in all of the flattening formation elements, except for the denominators of f and f' , which means their $o\!\varepsilon\,\!$ function assignments are reversed:

$o\!\varepsilon=\arccos\left(\frac{a}{b}\right)=2\arctan\left(\!\sqrt{\frac{b-a}{b+a}}\;\right);\,\!$

$\begin{matrix}{}_{}\\\; f&=&\frac{b-a}{a} &=&\sec(o\!\varepsilon)-1 &=&\frac{1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon)}{\cos(o\!\varepsilon)} &=&\frac{2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)}{1-2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)};\\\\ f'&=&\frac{b-a}{b} &=&1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon) &=&\frac{1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon)}{1} &=&2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right);\\\\ f''&=&\frac{b-a}{b+a} &=&\tan^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right) &=&\frac{1-\cos(o\!\varepsilon)}{1+\cos(o\!\varepsilon)} &=&\frac{2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)}{2-2\sin^2\left(\frac{o\!\varepsilon}{2}\right)}.\\{}^{}\end{matrix}\,\!$

Notes

See also the Wikipedia article:

Flattening