I feel that I need to start off by saying this: Christopher Columbus did NOT discover the Earth was round. In fact, without this knowledge, we would have never made it to space. But this was a fact that was known long before we had any cameras in space. The likely answer is that we have pictures of the Earth from outer space showing its curvature did the trick.

But how do you know the shape of the Earth is curved? What piece of knowledge convinced you of this fact? Knowledge that we take for granted in the twenty-first century, may have been mind boggling in centuries past.or was it?įor example, we take the fact that the Earth is a 'sphere' for granted (or almost a perfect spherical, it bulges at the equator). However, commonly held scientific facts are not always as self evident as they appear to be. There are several things that people often bring up when discussing obvious facts, such as the sum of two and two equaling four, the Earth traversing around the Sun once a year ( not everyone understands this, actually), or perhaps the shape of the Earth. Since this is currently a popular topic, let's take a moment to really break the science down (just bookmark this in the event that you encounter a 'Flat Earther' during your online wanderings.). You’ve never been south of Earth’s Equator, or if so, you've never looked up.

The earth is round or flat