“The Earth is flat in shape, rather than an oblate spheroid.”

It was determined that these systematic errors reduce dramatically (in some cases) when the oblate shape of the earth is taken into account.

Indirect evidence of the Earth's spherical shape has existed for a long time, but the photographic proof was lacking until well into the 20th century. With sounding rockets and then spacecraft returning photographs from ever-greater distances from the planet, we could begin to see the Earth first as a full disk, then as a smaller and smaller blue oasis against the emptiness of space. The Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s returned thousands of stunning and memorable images of humanity's first exploration of another world, including photographs of the Earth that show its smooth blue ball shape.

Today, scientists use geodesy, which is the science of measuring Earth's shape, gravity and rotation. Geodesy provides accurate measurements that show Earth is round. Even though our planet is a sphere, it is not a perfect sphere. Because of the force caused when Earth rotates, the North and South Poles are slightly flat.

Astronomers have been able to prove our planet is a globe for well over 2,000 years, using methods you can recreate at home. During a lunar eclipse, Earth casts a circular shadow on the Moon, not an oval – something astronomers in the 5th century BCE knew suggested a spherical world. Aristotle noted that when a ship sailed beyond the horizon, the masts would remain visible after the hull had disappeared, as you would expect if it had sailed around a curved edge, rather than across a flat Earth.

The Earth ISN'T round...but it isn't flat, it's more of an oblate spheroid. ... the main reason for this not exactly round shape is because of the earth's rotation the planet's constant spinning makes it bulge at the equator.

Physicists will find it shocking, but there are plenty of people around the world who genuinely believe the Earth is flat. To account for night and day, most flat-Earthers think the Sun moves in circles around the North Pole, with its light acting like a spotlight. The most recent “US model”, for example, suggests that the Sun and Moon are 50 km in diameter and circle the disc-shaped Earth at a height of 5500 km, with the stars above this on a rotating dome.

Earth's widest point is the equator, which runs across the planet's center at zero degrees latitude. This is because Earth is not a perfect sphere; it has a prominence across its center called the equatorial bulge. According to NASA, Earth's radius at the equator is 3,963 miles (6,378 kilometers), while the radius at the poles is 3,950 miles (6,356 km). That reveals that our planet is flattened at the poles, meaning its shape is an oblate spheroid.

Thousands of photos of Earth taken by satellites and astronauts confirm our planet's shape. These images come from multiple space agencies, including NASA, ESA, and private companies like SpaceX, making a global conspiracy virtually impossible. Independent amateur astronomers have captured Earth's curvature, and even high-altitude balloons show the same effect.

The misconception that the Earth must be flat because it looks flat to us arises simply because the Earth is big. The height of an adult is much less than one millionth of the Earth's radius. If you were to stand at the North Pole, Polaris (the North Star), would be directly overhead. On a flat Earth, Polaris would always be visible — no matter how far away from the North Pole you moved, it would still be above the horizon. However, by the time you reach the equator, Polaris is on the northern horizon, and it disappears entirely once you move into the southern hemisphere.

Earth takes on a shape known as an oblate spheroid—think of it as a slightly squished ball, wider around the equator and flatter at the poles. This unique form arises from Earth's rotation, where centrifugal force pushes outward near the equator, causing a subtle bulge there while compressing its polar regions. Earth's equatorial diameter measures about 12,756 kilometers compared to approximately 12,714 kilometers at the poles—a difference of 42 kilometers, which is significant enough for scientists to classify our home as an oblate spheroid rather than a perfect sphere.

flat Earth, the perception that Earth exists as a flat disk, either circular or square-shaped. This view persisted in the ancient world until empirical observations revealed that Earth's shape was spherical or ellipsoidal. In modern times, however, the notion of a flat Earth has been revived and promoted on social media despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

The first strong scientific arguments for Earth's round shape came from Aristotle in the 4th century BCE, who carefully studied natural phenomena and gathered observational evidence. Practical confirmation of Earth's roundness came during the Age of Exploration, with the expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan between 1519 and 1522 completing the first successful circumnavigation of the planet.