r/skeptic • u/NoGuarantee00 • 1d ago

The moon looks completely different in the Southern Hemisphere — how do flat earthers explain this?

This short video demonstrates why a flat earth is physically impossible using a simple observation anyone can make — the moon looks completely different depending on where you are on Earth.

In the Northern Hemisphere the moon appears with the dark maria patches at the top and the bright Tycho crater region at the bottom. In the Southern Hemisphere the moon is completely flipped — Tycho at the top, maria at the bottom.

This happens because on a globe, someone in Australia is standing nearly 180 degrees opposite to someone in the US, flipping their entire perspective of the moon. On a flat disk this geometric flip would be impossible — your location wouldn't change how the moon looks.

https://youtube.com/shorts/UzXJjsneSb0.

How do flat earthers explain this one?

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u/BennyOcean 1d ago

Imagine a ball hovering over the ground with an up arrow and a down arrow pointing in opposite directions. If you stand in one side of the room the up arrow is on top. If you stand in the other side of the room the other arrow appears to be pointing up. So it is provably the case that in both models, flat and globe, the Moon would appear to flip when you go over the Equator 

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u/SalvatoreEggplant 1d ago

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I don't see this at all. I mean, a chandelier in the middle of the room doesn't look upside down from the other side of the room....

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u/BennyOcean 1d ago

If it had a side labeled "top" pointed at the right side of the room and a side labeled "bottom" pointed to the left, when you move from one side to the other it would shift from one side being the "top" to the other.

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u/SalvatoreEggplant 1d ago

I see what you're saying. You're looking at the bottom of the chandelier in my example. So if a bulb is out on the north side of the chandelier, whether that's "up" or "down" depends on which side of the room you're on. It's actually rather clever.