• Question: is the world flat or round, if so then why don't people fly off the edge of the world.

    Asked by anon-186281 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 11 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      The world is round, we have known the earth isn’t flat since 6 BC…so quite a long time! Thanks to gravity we are pulled down on earth to keep us from flying off in to space.

    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      Gravity pulls us to the centre of a round earth. This means we all stick to the surface rather than slipping off.

    • Photo: Trystan Leng

      Trystan Leng answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      The world is round. People do fly off the edge of the world sometimes – they are called astronauts! A force called gravity pulls us down towards the earth. To escape the earth’s gravitation pull, we have to be going faster than the earth’s ‘escape velocity’. By travelling faster than this, people can fly off the edge of the world. But this escape velocity is very fast (over 11km a second) – so you or I don’t need to worry about that day to day!

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