Scientists puzzled as Earth gets fatter round the middle

THE Earth has suddenly become fatter round the middle in the last four years, researchers have found.

Like a pumpkin, the planet is a little bit wider around the equator than a perfect sphere would be. For 19 years its waistline shrank, but since 1998 it has been expanding, according to a study in the journal Science.

American scientists Christopher M. Cox and Benjamin F. Chao noticed the bizarre phenomenon after studying space-based observations from the past 25 years.