 is a globe.
Another thing the Flat-Earthers could test on their Antarctic cruise would be the Midnight Sun. Any location north of the Arctic Circle will experience the Midnight Sun at some point during the winter season, and any point south of the Antarctic Circle will also experience the Midnight Sun during the Antarctic winter. A tell-tale sign is that in the Arctic, the Midnight Sun moves from left to right in the sky, while in the Antarctic the Midnight Sun moves from right to left. The Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions site has a video showing this behavior. Many Flat-Earthers claim there are no videos of the Midnight Sun in the Antarctic – they are wrong.
II.3: The Stars
Flat-Earthers believe that the stars are located in a half-dome that rotates around the Earth’s disc once per day. The belief in a “celestial sphere” containing the stars pre-dated Copernicus. The attachment of Flat-Earthers to this picture of the stars reminds one of the woodcut published in Camille Flammarion’s 1888 book L’atmosphere Meteorologie Populaire. This shows a man in medieval times who manages to find the point where the celestial sphere intersects the Earth. Poking his head through the celestial sphere, he sees many features on the other side of that sphere, including the gears and machinery that make the Heavens move about Earth. As a side note, it is widely believed that this is a medieval woodcut, although it first appeared in Flammarion’s book in the late 19th century. Fig. II.7 was colored by Susanna Magruder.
The axis of the celestial sphere supposedly extends upwards from the North Pole of the Earth. Over approximately a 24-hour period, the celestial sphere will make one complete rotation about Earth. Some Flat-Earthers claim that Polaris, the North Star, is located at the axis of rotation. They assert “The North Star, it never moves.” In his 1885 book One Hundred Proofs That the Earth is not a Globe, William Carpenter stated that “Since we can (in middle north latitudes) see the North Star … all the year round, it is proof enough for any man in his senses that we have made no motion at all and that the Earth is not a globe.” Thus, true believers claim that the fixed positions of the stars, and the fact that the star Polaris never moves, constitute proof of Flat-Earth Theory.
Unfortunately for them, Polaris does move. First, Polaris is not currently located exactly at the North celestial pole. It is 0.65 degrees from the Pole, and one can measure the motion of Polaris with a decent telescope. One reason that Polaris appears to be stationary is that it is very far from Earth. Astronomers know that Polaris is 433.8 light-years from Earth. In fact, Polaris is part of a three-star multiplet. Polaris Aa, a yellow supergiant star, is in orbit with a smaller companion star Polaris Ab; and that pair is in orbit with a third star Polaris B.
We now know that, due to the precession of the equinoxes (a gravity-induced change in the orientation of Earth’s rotational axis), over time Polaris will be observed to move away from the celestial North Pole. Thus, claims by Flat-Earthers that Polaris is absolutely stationary are completely false.
On this same topic, Samuel Rowbotham asserted that “Throughout thousands of years the same constellations have remained fixed in their same patterns without moving out of position whatsoever. If the Earth were a big ball spinning around a bigger Sun spinning around a bigger galaxy, it is impossible that the constellations would remain so fixed.” In fact, the constellations have not remained fixed. We know that stars are moving relative to Earth, and are moving at varying rates since the stars in a given constellation may be billions of miles apart and moving in different directions. If we study star charts from a few hundred years ago, we can easily detect the motion of various stars. Fig. II.9 compares the current shape of Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) with the configuration shown in John Flamsteed’s 1729 book Atlas Coelestis. The motion of Polaris, caused by Earth’s axial precession, is clearly visible. 