triaxiality

"Shape coexistence and triaxiality in the superheavy nuclei".

A second theory, more complicated than triaxiality, proposed that observed long periodic orbital variations of the first Earth satellites indicate an additional depression at the south pole accompanied by a bulge of the same degree at the north pole.

Modern geodesy tends to retain the ellipsoid of revolution and treat triaxiality and pear shape as a part of the geoid figure: they are represented by the spherical harmonic coefficients and , respectively, corresponding to degree and order numbers 2.2 for the triaxiality and 3.0 for the pear shape.