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Medieval artistic representation of a spherical Earth – with compartments representing earth, air, and water (c. 1400) The Erdapfel, the oldest surviving terrestrial globe (1492/1493) The spherical shape of the Earth was known and measured by astronomers, mathematicians, and navigators from a variety of literate ancient cultures, including ...
With a spherical Earth, half the planet is in daylight at any given time and the other half experiences nighttime. When a given location on the spherical Earth is in sunlight, its antipode – the location exactly on the opposite side of Earth – is in darkness. The spherical shape of Earth causes the Sun to rise and set at different times in ...
A spherical Earth is a well-known historical approximation that is satisfactory for geography, astronomy and many other purposes. Several models with greater accuracy (including ellipsoid ) have been developed so that coordinate systems can serve the precise needs of navigation , surveying , cadastre , land use , and various other concerns.
The Ge zhi cao (格致草) treatise of Xiong Mingyu (熊明遇) published in 1648 showed a printed picture of Earth as a spherical globe, with the text stating that "the round Earth certainly has no square corners". [97] The text also pointed out that sailing ships could return to their port of origin after circumnavigating the waters of Earth ...
In geophysics and physical geodesy, a geopotential model is the theoretical analysis of measuring and calculating the effects of Earth's gravitational field (the geopotential). The Earth is not exactly spherical, mainly because of its rotation around the polar axis that makes its shape slightly oblate.
Earth radius (denoted as R 🜨 or R E) is the distance from the center of Earth to a point on or near its surface. Approximating the figure of Earth by an Earth spheroid (an oblate ellipsoid), the radius ranges from a maximum (equatorial radius, denoted a) of nearly 6,378 km (3,963 mi) to a minimum (polar radius, denoted b) of nearly 6,357 km (3,950 mi).
The myth of the flat Earth, or the flat-Earth error, is a modern historical misconception that European scholars and educated people during the Middle Ages believed the Earth to be flat. [1] [2] The earliest clear documentation of the idea of a spherical Earth comes from the ancient Greeks (5th century BC).
The T and O map represents only half of the spherical Earth, [6] presumably a convenient projection of the known northern temperate region. It was believed that no one could cross the torrid equatorial clime and reach the unknown lands to the south, the antipodes. [6] [7]