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- Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. Instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid—a sphere that is squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator. He was correct and, because of this bulge, the distance from Earth's center to sea level is roughly 21 kilometers (13 miles) greater at the equator than at the poles.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-round/
How do we know Earth isn't flat? We can prove it. Here are 5 scientific ways of deducing that our home planet is a round globe, not a disc.
Apr 12, 2007 · Planet Earth is not, in fact, perfectly round. Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. Instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid—a sphere that is squashed at...
- Check The Shadows on The Moon
- Follow Ships on The Horizon
- Look Up at The Stars
- Conduct A Stick Test
- Climb A Hill Or Mountain
- Ride A Plane
- Scope Out Other Planets
- Consider The Existence of Time Zones
- Feel The Pull of Gravity
- Browse Images from Space
Now that humanity knows quite positively that the moon is not a piece of cheese or a playful god, the phenomena that accompany it (from its monthly cycles to lunar eclipses) are well-explained. It was quite a mystery to the ancient Greeks, though, and in their quest for knowledge, they came up with a few insightful observations that helped humanity...
If you’ve been next to a port lately, or just strolled down a beach and stared off vacantly into the horizon, you might have noticed a very interesting phenomenon: Approaching ships do not just “appear” out of the horizon like they should have if the world was flat, but rather seem to emerge from beneath the sea. But, you say, ships do not submerge...
This observation was originally made by Aristotle (384-322 BCE), who declared the Earth was round judging from the different constellations one sees while moving away from the equator. After returning from a trip to Egypt, Aristotle noted, “There are stars seen in Egypt and … Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions.” This phenomenon can ...
If you stick a stick in the (sticky) ground, it will produce a shadow. The shadow moves as time passes (which is the principle for ancient Shadow Clocks). If the world had been flat, then two sticks in different locations would produce the same shadow. But they don’t. This, again, is because the Earth is round, and not flat. Eratosthenes (276-194 B...
Standing on a flat plateau, you look ahead toward the horizon. You strain your eyes, then take out your favorite binoculars and stare through them, as far as your eyes (with the help of the binocular lenses) can see. Next, climb up the closest tree—the higher the better, just be careful not to drop those binoculars and break their lenses. Then look...
If you’ve ever taken a trip out of the country, specifically long-distance trips, you could notice two interesting facts about planes and the Earth: 1. Planes can travel in a relatively straight line for a very long time and not fall off any edges. They can also circle the Earth without stopping. 2. If you look out the window on a trans-Atlantic fl...
The Earth is different from other planets, that much is true. After all, we have life, and we haven’t found any other planets with life (yet). However, there are certain characteristics all planets have, and it will be quite logical to assume that if all planets behave a certain way, or show certain characteristics—specifically if those planets are...
The time in New York, at the moment these words are written, is 12:00 p.m. The sun is in the middle of the sky (though it’s hard to see with the current cloud coverage). In Beijing, it’s 12:00 a.m., midnight, and the sun is nowhere to be found. In Adelaide, Australia, it is 1:30 a.m. More than 13 hours ahead. There, the sunset is long gone—so much ...
Here’s an interesting fact about mass: It attracts things to it. The force of attraction (gravity) between two objects depends on their mass and the distance between them. Simply said, gravity will pull toward the center of mass of the objects. To find the center of mass, you have to examine the object. Consider a sphere.Since a sphere has a consis...
In the past 60 years of space exploration, we’ve launched satellites, probes, and people into space. Some of them got back, some of them still float through the solar system (and almost beyond it), and many transmit amazing images to our receivers on Earth. In all of these photos, the Earth is (wait for it) spherical. The curvature of the Earth is ...
- Moriel Schottlender
Dec 21, 2020 · Indirect evidence of the Earth’s spherical shape has existed for a long time, but the photographic proof was lacking until well into the 20th century. The ancient Greeks believed the Earth was round and calculated its circumference with remarkable accuracy, while observers inferred our planet’s spherical shape as it cast a curved shadow on ...
Sep 28, 2017 · Rapper B.o.B wants to launch a satellite into space to find out, once and for all, whether the Earth is flat or round. Here are seven other ways to prove our planet is spherical.
Jun 3, 2016 · Animated short video in which Adam Rutherford & Hannah Fry explain why the Earth isn't rou. So what is the true shape of our planet?
While the Earth appears to be round when viewed from the vantage point of space, it is actually closer to an ellipsoid. However, even an ellipsoid does not adequately describe the Earth’s unique and ever-changing shape.
