How Do We Know Earth Is Round?

Imagine you're on a boat sailing away from the shore, eventually, you can no longer see the land, just the top of a ship. That’s because Earth is round! Like a ball, Earth curves around, so we can’t see everything at once.

Long ago, people noticed that when ships sailed into the distance, they disappeared bottom-first, like going over a hill. This helped early scientists guess that Earth wasn’t flat, it was more like a giant sphere.

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Examples

  1. A ship sailing away disappears bottom-first over the horizon, like going over a hill.
  2. During a lunar eclipse, Earth’s shadow on the moon looks curved, just like a sphere.
  3. The sun rising and setting is because Earth rotates around its axis.

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