Hurricanes would disappear and travel would take "forever": what would happen if the Earth were actually flat. Eight facts

If the Earth were flat instead of elliptical, as it is, life on the planet would be completely different. Gravity would disappear, the sky would be black, and traveling would take "forever."

It would be quite strange to live on a disk with the Sun and Moon rotating overhead, writes Live Science. Eight main differences of life on a plate planet are named.

1. Lack of gravity.

Presumably, a flat Earth would have no gravity at all, since, according to calculations by mathematician and physicist James Clerk Maxwell made in the 1850s, a solid disk similar to the Earth would be impossible under real gravity.

On the contrary, it would attract everything to the center of the disk, the North Pole. This would have caused chaos around the world.

2. The absence of an atmosphere.

Without gravity, the flat Earth would not be able to hold a layer of gases called the atmosphere. Without this "protective blanket," the sky above the Earth would turn black because sunlight would no longer scatter as it penetrates the Earth's atmosphere and would not color the sky the blue color we are used to. Without the atmosphere surrounding the planet, water would first boil in the vacuum of space.

3. "Sideways rain".

If gravity were to gravitate toward the center of the planetary disk, precipitation would also be attracted to this place. Only in the center of the disk would the weather behave as we know it - falling straight down. The further away, the more horizontal the precipitation would be.

4. Lack of satellites and GPS.

It is likely that satellites would not exist if the Earth were flat, as it would be difficult for them to orbit a flat plane. A geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory noted that under such conditions, it is difficult to imagine the GPS that humanity has come to rely on.

5. Traveling will last "forever".

It is likely that traveling would take longer not only because of the problems with navigation without GPS, but also because of the distances we would have to travel. According to the idea of a flat Earth, the Arctic lies in the center of the planet, and Antarctica forms a giant ice wall around the perimeter that conveniently keeps people from literally falling off the Earth.

But if you can't fly around the globe but have to fly across it, your travel time will increase significantly.

6. Scorched earth.

On a flat Earth, there would be no magnetic field, which causes the aurora borealis. But this is the least of the problems. The main thing is that the Earth would no longer be protected from the solar winds. The Earth and everything on its surface would be scorched by the sun's harmful radiation, leaving a barren world similar to our neighbor Mars, according to NASA.

7. One night sky.

The flat Earth would not be divided into hemispheres. So, day and night would not change depending on whether you are in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere.

8. No hurricanes.

The destructive rotational nature of these tropical storms is due to the Coriolis effect, which causes storms in the Northern Hemisphere to rotate counterclockwise and those in the Southern Hemisphere to rotate clockwise. However, on a stationary, flat Earth, the Coriolis effect would not occur.