FLAT EARTH believers were left in a huff after NASA astronaut Doug Hurley tweeted a photo of our round planet from space.
Flat Earth theorists maintain Earth is a flat disk surrounded by an impenetrable wall of ice. Despite 60 years of manned space exploration and thousands upon thousands of photos of Earth taken from space, many maintain a global conspiracy is hiding the truth from the public. Veteran NASA astronaut Colonel Doug Hurley caught a taste of the Flat Earth frenzy after sharing a photo snapped some 250 miles above Earth.
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Colonel Hurley is on the five people currently living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The astronaut’s colleagues are NASA’s Chriss Cassidy and Bob Behnken, and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.
On Wednesday, the astronaut tweeted a photo of our planet through the space station’s Cupola module – a 180-degree viewing port.
The beautiful photo highlights the curvature of the planet, while also capturing the boundary between day and night.
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Colonel Hurley tweeted from space: “I never get tired of this view from the Cupola as our orbit transitions into night.”
And though many people praised the photo, some questioned whether it was valid.
One Twitter user said: “This is a lie, we all know the Earth is flat.”
Another person said: “That’s not a real picture because the Earth is actually flat.”
A third Twitter user dubbed the photo a “nice animation” and others suggested humans have never even been to space.
However, humans have known the Earth is a globe as far back as ancient Greece.
The astronomer Eratosthenes is believed to be one of the first to determine the globe’s shape.
More than 2,000 years ago, the astronomer stuck a stick in the ground in the city of Alexandria, Egypt.
Eratosthenes then examined the shadow cast by the stick at noon on the day of the summer solstice.
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At the same time, just south of Alexandria in Syene, no shadows were being cast by the Sun.
Eratosthenes determined the planet must be curved if the Sun was casting its light at the same angle but shadows were only present in one location.
The Earth’s shape can be easily proven with very simple experiments.
If you look at a ship sailing off in the horizon, it will not grow smaller and smaller until it disappears.
Instead, you will see it sink below the horizon, hull first, followed by its mast.
If you look at the starry sky at different latitudes around the globe, you will notice different constellations are visible.
For example, The Big Dipper is always visible at latitudes of 41 degrees north or higher.
But if you look at the constellation below 25 degrees south, The Big Dipper will barely peak over the horizon.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle figured this out in 350 BC.
Sourse: www.express.co.uk
