Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

1.3K

There's no up or down in space. There should be an equal amount of pics showing Antarctica as the north pole. But every pic of earth from space shows the world as canada being at the top and not Australia. if you search 'earth from space upside down' all you get is people making fake images of what the earth would look like if it's upside down.

Also all of these earth pics are taken from afar so it's not due to satellites being launched from northern hemisphere and thus taking the pic at that angle.

There's no up or down in space. There should be an equal amount of pics showing Antarctica as the north pole. But every pic of earth from space shows the world as canada being at the top and not Australia. if you search 'earth from space upside down' all you get is people making fake images of what the earth would look like if it's upside down. Also all of these earth pics are taken from afar so it's not due to satellites being launched from northern hemisphere and thus taking the pic at that angle.

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (116).
[–] • 6 pts

Back in the day, maps were oriented so East was at the top instead of North, hence the term "Orient". Now we arbitrarily put North at the top.

Photos of Earth from space are typically oriented to put north at the top to match the expected orientation on modern maps. Eventhough this relative orientation isnt necessary in infinite 3D space, it is useful for human perception. It's the same reason Ender Wiggam said "The enemy's gate is down". Relative orientations in space are arbitrary, but it makes it easier to conceptualize if everyone is consistent in how they use them.

[–] • 2 pts

Back in the day, maps were oriented so East was at the top instead of North, hence the term "Orient".

Hey that's really interesting

[–] • 4 pts

That's why I crack up whenever some fool claims "Oriental" is "racist". It literally means "Easterner", much as "Occidental" means "Westerner".

It came out of Christians orientating maps eastwards towards Jerusalem. Sure, it's actually south east of Europe, but early geography was pretty challenging due to the difficulty of accurately surveying land over long distances so East was a close enough approximation.