But on a flat Earth, without a solid core generating a magnetic field that protective layer - the magnetosphere - would cease to exist.

On spherical Earth, the swirling molten metal surrounding our iron core generates electric currents that in turn create our protective magnetic field which curves around the planet from one pole to the other, according to NASA. On the upside, at least on flat-Earth humans would have the horizontal rain to point us in the right - well, north - direction.Īurora photographed by NASA astronaut Jack Fischer aboard the International Space Station. It's hard to imagine a world without GPS, suffice to say we'd be lost. And critically, emergency services use GPS to locate callers from their phone signal, the satellite communications could possibly save your life. We depend on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for anything from the GPS services on your phone, to travel information and supermarket just-in-time stock management to make sure produce arrives as fresh and as quickly as possible. 'There are a number of satellite missions that society depends on that just wouldn't work,' James Davis, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a statement 'I cannot think of how GPS would work on a flat Earth,' said Davis. It is likely that satellites would not exist if the Earth were flat, as they would have trouble orbiting a flat plane. It’s hard to imagine a world without GPS, suffice to say we’d be lost! (Image credit: Blend Images - Diego Cervo via Getty)

Flat earth map