Map projection of the triaxial ellipsoid

Okay kiddo, so you know how when you draw a picture on a flat piece of paper, it can look different than if you drew it on a round ball, right? That's kind of like what happens when we try to make a map of the Earth.

The Earth is actually shaped like a big round ball, but if we tried to draw it completely flat on a piece of paper or computer screen, it would look all weird and distorted. So we use something called a map projection to try and make it look more accurate.

Now, imagine you had a ball that was a little bit squished on the top and bottom, so it's not a perfect round shape. That's kind of what the Earth looks like. It's called a triaxial ellipsoid.

So when we make a map projection of the Earth, we have to figure out a way to make it look accurate while also taking into account its squished shape. It can be kind of complicated, but there are a lot of different map projections that people have come up with to try and do this.

Some map projections try to show the Earth's shape as accurately as possible, but they might make the continents look weirdly stretched or smashed together. Other map projections try to make the continents look more accurate, but then the overall shape of the Earth might be distorted.

So basically, a map projection of the triaxial ellipsoid is just a way of showing what the Earth looks like on a flat piece of paper or screen, while trying to keep it as accurate as possible even though the Earth is kind of squished.