Although astronomers have figured out Earth is a spherical body more than 2,000 years ago, Flat Earth truthers maintain a global conspiracy is hiding the truth from the public. The Flat Earth theory rejects the heliocentric model in which our planet races around the Sun at the centre of the solar system. Instead, flat Earthers have taken to platforms like Twitter to share conspiracy theories in a bid to try and convince everyone planets, including Earth, are not real.
Twitter user @Arc_Unreal sparked a fierce debate on Twitter today (July 21) when he shared his bizarre theories.
The conspiracy theorist shared a video tracking the Sun’s movement across the sky from morning to evening.
The video is meant to show the Sun is a local source of light and not a burning ball of gas 93 million miles from us.
The Twitter user said: “The Sun and Moon are small and local.
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“They travel above our flat Earth realm. This real timelapse footage proves this is true.
“First the Sun all day. Second light follows the local Sun.
“The whole horizon should fade evenly if a globe. Then the Moon follows the Sun.”
Flat Earth truthers believe the Moon and the Sun follow a circular trajectory around the planet, acting like giant spotlights.
However, the theory does not explain how the Sun and Moon can travel around the planet, as the Flat Earth theory does not accept gravity is real.
The same principles keep satellites in orbit around the planet.
Dr Davis said: “There are a number of satellite missions that society depends on that just wouldn’t work.
“I cannot think of how GPS would work on a flat Earth.”
The Twitter user @Arc_Unreal also challenged the idea of other planets beyond Earth, stating bodies like Venus are Mars stars and not planets.
They said: “The Earth is not a planet, because there are no such things as planets.”
However, ancient astronomers have known the Earth is round as early as 350 BC when Aristotle wrote about a spherical planet in his treatise On the Heavens.
The astronomer Eratosthenes of Cyrene is also credited as one of the first people to measure the planet’s circumference in 240 BC.
He achieved so by observing the shadow of two sticks at two different locations, cast at noon on the day of the summer solstice.
One stick, pushed into the ground in Alexandria, cast a shadow while another stick in Syene did not.
Eratosthenes determined the Sun’s parallel rays, fell at an angle in Alexandria.
Astrophysicist Carl Sagan explained the simple experiment on his series Cosmos: “Eratosthenes had the presence of mind to experiment, to actually ask whether back here near Alexandria, a stick cast a shadow near noon on June 21. And it turns out, sticks do.
“An overly sceptical person might have said that the report from Syene was an error.
“But it’s an absolutely straightforward observation.
“Why would anyone lie on such a trivial matter?”