Empirical Earth · The Boomerangs — Flat-Earth Proofs That Backfire

Crepuscular rays — the boomerang

The claim

“Sunbeams fan out from a point just above the clouds — the Sun is small and local.”

What is measured

Sunbeams are parallel to a fraction of a degree (the Sun is ~150 million km away). The “fan” is perspective, and the rays reconverge on the opposite horizon.

What would show this is wrong

sunbeams that diverged from a near point and never reconverged at the antisolar horizon.

Sources

  1. Crepuscular & anticrepuscular rays. Sunbeams are nearly parallel; perspective makes them appear to diverge from the Sun and to re-converge at the antisolar point on the opposite horizon. cre link
  2. Crepuscular rays are parallel. Atmospheric-optics references show crepuscular and anticrepuscular rays are parallel shafts of light that only appear to converge — on the Sun and on the antis link
  3. The Sun’s angular diameter does not change through the day. The Sun subtends about 0.53° as seen from Earth. Its apparent diameter varies by roughly 3% over the course of a year, from about link
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