Do you believe that the Earth could be flat? Taking into account the scandal around the moon landing being a hoax,

Question: Do you believe that the Earth could be flat? Taking into account the scandal around the moon landing being a hoax, copied and pasted cloud formations on zoomed-in pictures provided by NASA etc.
- Keywords:
  conspiracy theory,
  earth,
  hoax,
  space
Asked by anon-181537 on 6 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by andrewhigginson, anon-181367, anon-181932.
- Nathan Clarke answered on 6 Jun 2018:
  
  Good question Amy. I don’t think the Earth is flat because there are many images taken from space that show us that it’s a sphere. We also have pictures of lots of different planets, which are also round, it would be pretty unlucky for us to live on the only flat one. Also, aeroplanes make me pretty sure its round – friends of mine have demonstrated this by flying around the planet on their holidays (a few did ’round’ the world trips) – it wouldn’t be possible to do this if the Earth was flat. As for the moon landing, the ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging experiment provides good evidence that we’ve landed on it. During the Apollo space missions, astronauts left reflectors on the moon (called retroreflectors). Scientists are pointing lasers at the reflectors, which bounce back and allow us to get an accurate measure of the distance between the Earth and the moon. Somebody had to leave them there 🙂
- Joey Shepherd answered on 7 Jun 2018:
  
  Nathan gave a great answer! No, the Earth is not flat. Pictures taken from space show us that it is a sphere, and if you keep tavelling in one direction you don’t fall off the edge!
- Liza Selley answered on 8 Jun 2018:
  
  Next time you go on an airplane take a peak at the horizon out the window – you can see the curvature of the earth with your very own eyes!
- Alex Haragan answered on 8 Jun 2018:
  
  Good answers given.
  It isn’t a case of belief. The overwhelming evidence, indeed all evidence of substance, is that the world is an imperfect sphere. (ie not completely round but pretty close).
  In addition to the self-evident truth of earth curvature (as stated already, you can see the horizon dropping off, you can do this out at sea on in a desert, you don’t even have to be on a plane!) basic physical processes that underpin our entire understanding of physics (like gravity) wouldn’t work on a flat earth.
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  The fact is you can find conspiracy theories on pretty much any subject – and if you go reading certain websites or listening to certain paranoid people, the way in which they phrase their arguments can seem compelling.
  But if you lay out all the evidence for and against, and look at it clearly with no preconceptions or politics – then you are doing what any good scientist should be doing everyday.
  The answer, so they say, speaks for itself.
- Claire Donald answered on 8 Jun 2018:
  
  I agree with everyone here that the Earth is most definitely round, just as all the other plants in the solar system are. But part of being a good scientist is judging the evidence yourself and coming to your own conclusions based on the data. I hope you’ll consider the science and not the conspiracies!
- Hannah Farley answered on 10 Jun 2018:
  
  No. See all the other scientists’ answers – science is very evidence-based, so seeing isn’t believing until you’ve thoroughly evaluated and investigated what you see, why you can see it, how you can see it etc etc…