The earth is a sphere

Thanks Con! NASA Con starts off by questioning why the NASA images show a perfectly spherical image of earth when the earth is actually an oblate spheroid. The reason for this is because it is only very slightly oblate. The equator is only 42.77km higher than the poles (1); considering that the diameter of the earth is 12,756km (2), the earth is only a tiny bit oblate. So when a picture of earth is taken, it will appear to be perfectly spherical just because it is very, very close to being perfectly spherical. The second image supposedly shows that the USA has doubled in size in two photos. This is easily explained; the orientation at which the image pictures the earth is different. In the 2007 photo, we are looking at an latitude of about 5 degrees whereas the 2012 photo is taken at a latitude of about 20 degrees. Furthermore, the manner in which the NASA photos are taken varies, so the photos aren't going to be exactly the same - that doesn't mean they're faked. (3) For the alleged cloud copy and pasting, Con does not provide a source for his image. He has not proven that this is a photo taken by NASA and therefore this isn't proof that NASA has faked their images. The 'sex' in cloud formations is no proof at all. There have been countless cases of clouds exhibiting words/images that are merely coincidental. Besides, why would NASA deliberately risk their so-called deception be giving infantile clues? Next, Con states that the absence of satellites means that the images of the earth are faked. Firstly, satellites are so tiny compared to the earth that they wouldn't be visible on a large scale photo such as this. Secondly, photo satellites are some of the lowest flying satellites (4), so most satellites would be above them anyway. The fifth 'proof' isn't a proof at all, it's just an infographic explaining how images of the earth are put together. Just because several images are stitched together in Photoshop, it doesn't mean that they are fake. Finally, even if NASA was orchestrating a large-scale conspiracy, the existence of spherical images from Russia provide a whole other level of proof that the earth is spherical (5). I'm not just relying on NASA sourced images as proof. Hence Con's attacks do not refute my argument. Gravity Con does not believe gravity exists. Which is odd. I'll talk through why gravity exists in the context of science. How does science work? It starts with an observation. Let's say I take an apple and let go. It is pulled towards the ground. Now we must ask why this occurs? A hypothesis is created. If a hypothesis stands up to further tests and is not disproved, then we accept it to be empirically true that this hypothesis is correct. In regards to our apple-dropping observation, the gravity hypothesis has stood up to rigorous tests to the extent that virtually all scientists now accept that it is true. If Con really doesn't believe in gravity, then I invite him to provide a better explanation for why an apple is pulled towards the earth. Dipping distances Again, Con does not cite sources for his lighthouse statistics, so for the meantime I will not take them to be true. Furthermore, the flat earth hypothesis is demonstrably false. If the earth was flat, then someone on one side of the Pacific could shine an extremely luminous light horizontally across the ocean and someone on the other side of the Pacific would be able to see it with a good telescope. But the fact is that no matter how luminous the light is or how strong the telescope is, there is no way that the two observers will be able to see each other. If the earth was flat, they would be able to. But they can't. Ergo, the earth isn't flat. It's also the reason why lighthouses were built to be tall. If the earth was flat, there would be no point in building a tall lighthouse. The reason lighthouses are built high is so that they can be viewed from further away, which entails that the earth is rounded. Stars Con's explanation for the visibility of different stars in the different hemispheres is that the law of perspective hides them from view. But if this was to be a valid explanation, the stars would have to be only about 100 miles above the earth. Fact is, stars are billions of miles away (6). There are multiple methods that ascertain this, so it is accepted as fact that stars are not as close to the earth as the Flat Earth hypothesis requires. Finally, the reason that you can see Polaris at very close to the equator in the Southern Hemisphere is because it is not exactly above the North Pole, and actually rotates around it very slightly (7). Airplane windows Even if airplane windows distort the earth to appear curved, there is other evidence as well. When Felix Baumgartner jumped from the stratosphere you could see not just a subtle curve, but an extreme curve that could not be an illusion caused by a fish-eye lens. (8) Planets If the other planets weren't spherical, then we would often see them shaped elliptically because our 'planes' wouldn't have to be always parallel. The observations of moon orbits also suggest that the planets are spherical. Con ignores the scientific explanation of how planets are formed, and how they can only be formed spherically and not as a flat circle. If Con says that the earth is 'a plane not a planet' then this raises the question of why there are no other such planes in the universe, and if there are, how could they be formed? Finally, Con states that images of the planets are 'all clearly fake computer-generated images' by NASA. Apart from this being an unsourced statement, he forgets that there are plenty of non-NASA photos of spherical planets as well as amateur photos from a half-decent telescope. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org... (2) http://geography.about.com... (3) https://www.metabunk.org... (4) http://www.spacetoday.org... (5) http://www.theverge.com... (6) http://www.astronomycafe.net... (7) https://answers.yahoo.com... (8)http://i3.mirror.co.uk...'s%20record%20breaking%20free%20fall%20jump