START
Nice try, Flat Earthers.
In an era in which science in constantly being questioned, misguided theories about the way the world works are pretty much par for the course. Over the last several years, there’s even been a return of a long-disproven theory that the Earth is flat.
Citing conspiracy theories and a whole lot of pseudoscience (if the liquid in a sealed bottle lies flat when horizontal, the Earth must, therefore, be flat, for example), modern-day Flat Earthers continue to walk among us. But skepticism over the shape of the Earth has one major problem: the mountain of evidence to refute the false claims. Not only have mathematicians and astronomers been providing scientific evidence of a spherical Earth for literally millennia, but it’s not even necessary to use complex equations and fancy equipment to see that the Earth is round. If you know where to look, the curvature of the Earth is visible with the naked eye. Here are ten places “a-round” the world where you can see for yourself that the Earth is not flat.
1 OF 10
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge
WHERE: Kobe, Japan
In 1998, Kobe, Japan unveiled a new suspension bridge connecting the mainland city to the island of Awaji across the Akashi Strait. Like other iconic suspension bridges (we’re looking at you, Golden Gate), the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge has three spans held aloft by two soaring towers. On a flat Earth, the distance between the bottom of the two towers and the top of the two towers would be equal. But in Kobe, the Akashi Kaikyo is so long—1.237 miles to be exact—that the curvature of the Earth gets in the way and the towers, which tilt gently along with the Earth’s shape, are nearly three inches farther apart at the top than at the bottom.
2 OF 10
Antarctica
So if the Earth is flat, why does Antarctica have non-existent days in the deep winter and endless sunlight at the height of summer? Even better, if the Earth is flat, why is it that when Antarctica is in that period of endless sunlight, the North Pole is experiencing endless night? If you accept that the Earth orbits the sun (can we at least agree to that?), a flat Earth would receive exactly the same amount of sun at both poles at all times of year. But it doesn’t. The reason, according to actual scientists, you know, like the kind that work for NASA, is that the spherical Earth is on a tilt, just like a globe, and as it orbits the sun, different portions of the spherical planet are closer to the light—the northern hemisphere in July and August, the southern one in January and February. Either that or there’s an out there with the exceedingly boring job of shining a light on the Earth in precise amounts each day from different angles? NASA could not be reached for comment.
3 OF 10
Cape Canaveral
WHERE: Florida
Speaking of those NASA scientists, it’s thanks to them that we have another bit of evidence that the Earth is not flat, one that’s pretty hard to ignore: Photos of, you guessed it, a spherical Earth. Sure, I guess those photos could be doctored, but it’s not just American astronauts launching from Florida’s Cape Canaveral that have snapped incredible shots of the Earth in all its round glory, it’s astronauts from around the world. Given the fact that several of the nations with space programs aren’t exactly great friends on Earth (the U.S. and Russia, for instance), it’s highly unlikely that they’ve somehow made a pact to pull the wool over the eyes of the planet with a conspiracy to release photos of a blue-and-green marble instead of a blue-and-green pancake.
4 OF 10
Bonneville Salt Flats
WHERE: Utah
One of the most ridiculous things about Flat Earther conspiracies is that, if you know where to look, you can see the “curvature” of the Earth with the naked eye (they believe this is conspiracy, we know it to be fact). In an ironic twist of language, perhaps the easiest place in the U.S. to uncover the not-so-secret-secret of whether the Earth is round or not is the 30,000 acre Bonneville Salt Flats west of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. This now-defunct Pleistocene Lake is so massive and so featureless that, on a clear day, the Earth visibly curves into the distance.
INSIDER TIPIf Bonneville isn’t convincing enough, head south to Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, the world’s largest salt pan, where the landscape is so smooth that it’s used to calibrate the altitude of satellites orbiting the Earth.
5 OF 10
Nairobi and Cape Town
WHERE: Kenya and South Africa
Before technology went into overdrive, Polaris, the North Star, was essential to navigation. Or, at least, it was essential for navigation as long as the place you were navigating was the Northern Hemisphere. As you head south, Polaris appears to move downward towards the Earth through the night sky. By the time you reach the equator in Nairobi, Kenya, say, Polaris is so low that it shines just above the northern horizon. Keep traveling south and the star disappears completely from view as the Earth curves towards the South Pole. From the vantage point of Cape Town, South Africa at the southern tip of the African continent, Polaris may as well not exist. The sky hasn’t changed, the portion that’s visible has—something that wouldn’t happen if the Earth was flat. From a flat Earth, not only would Polaris be visible from Cape Town, it would light the night sky from the same position as in Nairobi more than 3,000 miles to the north.
6 OF 10
Gough Island
WHERE: Tristan da Cunha
Deep in the southern Atlantic Ocean, Gough Island, home to a meteorological research station staffed by a rotating crew of about 14 people, rises from a landscape featureless and blue. A rugged outpost of Tristan da Cunha, a volcanic archipelago owned by Britain, Gough Island’s closest neighbors include Saint Helena (1,343 miles away), Cape Town, South Africa (1,511 miles away), and the Falkland Islands (2,166 miles away). It’s the perfect location for maybe only one thing: Proving that the Earth is not flat. With endless mile after endless mile of ocean beyond Gough’s rocky shores, it’s hard not to notice that the water gently curves in the distance—there’s literally nothing else to see. Whether you observe it with the naked eye, binoculars, or a telescope, the Earth in the distance looks the same: Round, round, round.
7 OF 10
Dinosaur National Monument
WHERE: Colorado and Utah
Isn’t it frustrating when the evidence to disprove a belief you’ve held for years has been right there the whole time? Here’s that moment for you, my Flat Earth friends. Go outside at night. Just step outside your house and look up at the sky. See those bright lights above you? Those are stars. Take note of their positions. Here’s a list of star chart apps that will help you. Can’t see enough of them? Take a road trip out of the city or, better yet, head to an International Dark Sky Park like Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah/Colorado border. You can see more stars there than practically anywhere else in the world. Those constellations you see, they’re in completely different locations in the Southern Hemisphere. Some aren’t even visible (remember Polaris?). If the Earth were flat, the locations of the stars you see from your backyard would be exactly the same as those you see from Dinosaur National Monument, which would be exactly the same as those you see from, say, Australia or Argentina. They’re not. And why? Because the Earth is round. You’re welcome.
8 OF 10
Mount Shasta
WHERE: California
At 14,179 feet tall, Northern California’s Mount Shasta is the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range. Because most mountains are surrounded by other peaks, their pinnacles are rarely the best spot for getting a view of the Earth’s curvature. But Shasta, which explodes out of the valley like an angry pimple, is different. There are no other mountain-tops to obscure the view of the Earth below. When not hemmed in by clouds (the volcano is so prominent that it creates its own weather patterns), the line of sight from Mount Shasta’s peak reaches a distance of 168 miles, far enough to see the Earth curving into the horizon. If you need more proof while you’re up there, there’s a simple experiment even the least scientifically-minded can conduct: Take two sticks (or anything long and stick-like) and string a line with a level between them. If the Earth were flat, you’d have no trouble getting that line to match up to the line of the horizon but because the planet is round, the line of the horizon in the distance will dip below the string. That dip is the Earth showing off its curves.
INSIDER TIPWashington’s Mount Rainier and Oregon’s Mount Hood, two other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, dominate the landscape the same way Shasta does in California, making them equally excellent spots for getting a look at the curvature of the Earth.
9 OF 10
Namib Desert
WHERE: Namibia
Lunar eclipses gave the ancient Greeks some of their first clues about the Earth’s shape. The celestial event takes place when the Moon moves behind the Earth, causing the latter to cast a shadow on the former. Regardless of the time of night or the season, those super-smart Greeks noticed that the Earth’s shadow across the Moon was always round. And since flat objects don’t cast round shadows, scholars came to the consensus that the Earth must be a sphere. While lunar eclipses aren’t an everyday occurrence, they do happen regularly, and the best place to see the rounded shadow of the Earth is from its darkest regions.
Considered one of the inkiest skies on the planet, from Namibia’s Namibrand Nature Reserve you can not only see lunar eclipses clearly with the naked eye but you don’t have to leave your room to do it. At Kwessie Dunes Lodge, guest bedrooms come complete with separate “stargazer” rooms that are open to the sky above.
INSIDER TIPAt the Sossusvlei Desert Lodge in the Namib Desert, an on-site observatory with a state-of-the-art telescope and a resident astronomer help guests go deeper into the science of lunar eclipses.
10 OF 10
Struve Geodetic Arc
WHERE: Scandinavia, Russia, and Eastern Europe
It’s not surprising that challenging Flat Earthers with evidence that the Earth is, in fact, one big, spherical planetary body among many big, spherical planetary bodies, sometimes falls—dare I say it—flat. Some say that mathematical calculations and scientific observations (tried-and-true methods of understanding the world) don’t really “prove” anything. Maybe it was exactly that kind of ignorance that 19th-century scientist Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve was hoping to put an end to when he embarked on a 39-year journey to be the first to physically measure the arc of the Earth. During his decades-long survey, Struve measured 265 geodetic vertices across ten countries, creating a chain that established the exact size and shape of the Earth. Along the way, he marked 34 survey points with holes drilled in rock, iron crosses, and cairns, a chain of markers UNESCO inscribed on their World Heritage List in 2005. Intrepid trekkers can follow the 1,750 mile trail today, which starts at Hammerfest, Norway and ends in Staro-Nekrasovka, Ukraine, to experience the Earth’s slow curve for themselves.