Is the Earth Round? MAJOR FACE PALM HERE FOLKS

Apparently there are some people out there that still think with their head up their posteriors. According to NBC News, The Flat Earth Society is offering $5 GRAND to any fool that can prove the Earth is round. More nonsense after the jump!

From NBC News:

NBC NEWS - We all know the center of the solar system is the sun, but if an opportunity to prove this using calculations was presented would you do it? "The Flat Earth Society" is offering $5000 to anyone that can prove the earth is round.

Rod Kennedy, Casper Planetarium, says, “We know that the moon orbits around the earth I mean that's the only way the moon can go through its phases."

For this challenge, people will have to use geometry and or trigonometry to show the orientation of the sun, moon, and Earth during a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse. The person will have to use only sun and moon angles to get time, orientation, direction, and distances to prove one way or another, but Nicholas Copernicus - a 16th century astronomer already figured out planets revolve around the sun.

Although this theory has already been proven, this could be a good opportunity for students to challenge themselves.

Paul Kasza, physics teacher, says, “although eclipses are pretty rare if they are able to use those then they can actually nail down from an actual observation perspective."

Some think it's near impossible to calculate. Kennedy: “The best way to prove that the earth and the other planets orbit the sun isn't so much looking at the sun but the outer planets."

But some say it is possible...

Kennedy: “The sun does a unique kind of motion if you were to photograph the sun at noon every single day for a year it makes this sort of figure out pattern in the sky and you see it on globes a lot, it's called an analema."

Kennedy says this figure eight pattern tells us the earth is tilted and earth revolves around the sun. "Either photographing the analema over the course of the year or observing the retrograde motion of mars"

While this challenge may be hard, it is possible. There's no deadline to participate. Also, if you want an opportunity to observe an eclipse. There will be a total solar eclipse visible in August 2017.

The next total solar eclipse won't be until around 2024.