Tommy Ames., age ll, of Bartlesville, Okla., for his question:

What shape is the earth?

Our lovely old earth is round like a beach ball. However, it is not a perfect sphere, for it is a little wide around the waist line. The diameter of a sphere or a circle is a line straight through the exact center from side to side. The earths diameter at the equator is a little longer than the diameter from pole to pole.

At the equator, the earth's diameter is a little more than 9,926 miles. At the poles, the diameter is a little less than 7,900. The circumference, a tape measure line around the surface, tells the same story. The earths circumference at the equator is 24,902 miles. The circumference through the poles is 24,860 miles.