The internet age should be the information age, the age when, for the first time in history, we have access to all the information we could ever need , and the age when pseudosciences and conspiracy theories should disappear. But it is also the time when it is easiest to spread lies and to do so without the need to provide evidence to support them. Hence, movements such as flat earthing have resurfaced with force. Well, today we are here to talk to you about one of the easiest ways to demonstrate the nonsense that this movement is , with a scientific experience that we will soon be able to enjoy: a lunar eclipse .
Of course this is not the only proof that the Earth is spherical and not flat, but it is a particularly visual one that we do not have access to very often , because it requires a lunar eclipse. Well, what is going to happen, and what do science and flat earthers think about this phenomenon? On May 16 , a shadow will cross the surface of the Moon, leaving our satellite in darkness for several hours, taking on a reddish hue in the process . Later this shaded region will retreat on the opposite side from which it appeared, returning the Moon to its usual brightness . This is the completely objective description of the process, without presupposing anything of the functioning of the universe. This will be easily visible from all over South and Central America , but also from parts of southern North America and eastern Africa and Europe. From Spain it can be seen before sunrise , around 5 in the morning, before the Moon sets behind the western horizon.
Science believes that this darkening of the Moon will take place because, in the natural course of the orbit of the satellite around the planet and of the planet around the star, it will happen that the Earth will be located on the line that joins the Moon and the Sun. , blocking the light from the star that was heading towards the satellite . By blocking this light, a shadowed region will be created that will move across the moon’s surface as the respective orbits advance.
On the other hand, flat earthers believe that this shadow will be the result of a “dark object” passing in front of the Moon , obscuring it. An object that is not visible the rest of the time and that is not mentioned in any other phenomenon that flat earthism attempts to explain. This description is given by the Flat-Earth Society , the world’s largest defender of this nonsense, on its own wiki.
Well, how is all this phenomenon, one of the best proofs that indeed the Earth is not flat but spherical . What we observe during a lunar eclipse is, effectively, the shadow that the Earth casts on the Moon when passing in front of it . If flat earthing were correct, this could not happen in the first place, because the Moon and the Sun both move on the same plane located several kilometers above the supposed terrestrial disk. However, science has no more problems in explaining it.
On the other hand, if the Earth were flat but had the Moon and the Sun orbiting as science thinks they do (against the official version of flat earthing), the shadow we would see cast on the Moon would be very different . In all the lunar eclipses seen since there is a record, and in the one on May 16, 2022, we will see a rounded shadow, corresponding to the shadow that a sphere would project. A disk would in most cases cast a shadow that would be no more than a fine line (if the disk is “on edge”) or an ellipsoidal shape . Only when the disk-Earth was exactly facing the Sun would that circular shadow be observed. But, we insist, this is not the explanation given by flat earthers themselves .
On the other hand, during the moment of maximum occultation of the Moon, it takes on a reddish hue . Part of the Sun’s light passes through the Earth’s atmosphere without reaching its surface and ends up being diffracted until it reaches the Moon . The reddish hue comes from the same mechanism that gives sunrises and sunsets their characteristic color. Rayleigh scattering affects short wavelengths (blue tones) more, so that when sunlight passes through a thick layer of atmosphere (such as when it is low on the horizon or when it passes all the way across the Earth’s side) to the moon) only red and orange light survives , giving our satellite that hue.
You will be able to verify all this on your own, without my being able to influence your verdict, next May 16, if you decide to get up early and look towards the west at around 5 in the morning, or in any of the next lunar eclipses that happen.
But, as we mentioned before, this is not the only proof that the Earth is not flat . The stars that we can observe in the celestial vault are proof that the Earth is spherical. If our planet were flat, the same stars could be observed from any point on its surface, we would have access to the same sky, but the reality is that the stars visible from the northern and southern hemispheres are different. Furthermore, if the Sun and the Moon were to float above the Earth , circling around the North Pole as proposed by flat earthers, they would never set behind the horizon , but would instead become smaller and larger depending on their distance. Also, distant ships or buildings would not suffer from this same effect. Earth’s rotation also affects the direction of rotation of hurricanes and large storms , depending on the hemisphere in which they occur. Finally, measuring the radius of the spherical Earth is so relatively simple that it was successfully done in the 3rd century BC by the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes .
