The ancient Greeks were able to calculate the Earth's circumference and prove the Earth is a sphere. But not everyone is convinced. One viral Instagram post claims a timelapse photo of a solar eclipse from the South Pole proves otherwise.
"South Pole polar eclipse proves we live on a flat plane," reads text included in the the Nov. 13 Instagram post (direct link, archive link), which features a timelapse photo of a solar eclipse taken in Antarctica.
The sun appears to be moving in a perfectly straight line in the timelapse. The post garnered more than 900 likes in one week.
But the claim is false. Scientists say the timelapse photo is not proof the Earth is flat. The sun appears to be moving in a straight horizontal line due to a multitude of factors including the location of the photo, the time of year and the length of photo exposure.
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment.
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The timelapse photo used in the claim was originally taken by Aman Chokshi, a physics doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne.
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