# Why don't stars fall up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 14, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252 "2011-09-14T04:35:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/21 "2011-09-16T00:09:35Z")
That’s a fair description, **AskNott** , with the minor quibble that some few meteors will pass briefly through the atmosphere and head back out into space, and thus really will be rising for a portion of their flight. But those are pretty rare compared with the ones that go down and never go back up. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/22 "2011-09-16T00:35:23Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > \_\_\_\_…--------=== \* **The More You Know** That’s awesome. ---
**Author:** ![NASAlikestolie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3be4f8/32.png) [@NASAlikestolie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NASAlikestolie)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/23 "2016-09-09T19:39:45Z")
Simple answer… We live on a flat plane earth and the sun moo and stars are enclosed within a dome firmament. This is a fascinating topic to research, but trust me, when you start looking into it…you’ll be amazed at how much dumb stuff you had been indoctrinated with. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/24 "2016-09-09T19:48:35Z")
> [@NASAlikestolie](#): > > Simple answer… We live on a flat plane earth and the sun moo and stars are enclosed within a dome firmament. What’s a sun moo? Is it that cow that jumped over the Moon, and then continued on a solar trajectory? Because I thought she’d burned up on re-entry. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/25 "2016-09-09T19:50:44Z")
> [@NASAlikestolie](#): > > Simple answer… We live on a flat plane earth and the sun moo and stars are enclosed within a dome firmament. > > This is a fascinating topic to research, but trust me, when you start looking into it…you’ll be amazed at how much dumb stuff you had been indoctrinated with. Are you an expert on “dumb stuff?” Because, that idea was disproved centuries ago. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/26 "2016-09-09T20:22:32Z")
If my “fall up” you mean you watch a shooting star start from low on the horizon and move higher on the horizon, I’ve seen that plenty of times. So before we hypothesize that the reason we don’t see shooting stars fall up is because we live on a flat Earth, first we have to establish that shooting stars don’t fall up. Since they do, there’s no need to invoke the flat Earth theory to explain a non-existent phenomenon. None of this has anything to do with whether the Earth is flat or spherical, or whether shooting stars would or would not seem to fall up on a flat or spherical Earth. The fact is, they do “fall up”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/27 "2016-09-09T20:31:03Z")
And even if we did live on a flat Earth, it’d still be possible for a meteor to visually move away from the horizon. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/28 "2016-09-09T20:56:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And even if we did live on a flat Earth, it’d still be possible for a meteor to visually move away from the horizon. If we lived on a flat Earth, would there even \*be \*a horizon? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/29 "2016-09-09T21:12:15Z")
Warning: zombies speak of meteors falling up. Current newbies speak of flat Earths and bovine Suns. Neither need much reply. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/30 "2016-09-09T23:02:36Z")
You all should read The Art of Sun Moo. It’s a mental discipline by which you turn an opponent’s ignorance against him. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/31 "2016-09-10T00:02:00Z")
Serious answer: Because if they did, I couldn’t pick one up and put it in my pocket. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/32 "2016-09-10T01:03:17Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > If we lived on a flat Earth, would there even \*be \*a horizon? Sure, it’s the edge of the ocean, where all the ships fall off. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/33 "2016-09-10T01:32:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Peter Morris** : > > If we lived on a flat Earth, would there even be a horizon? Sure. If you look up, you see sky. If you look down, you see dirt. There must be some angle somewhere in between where you see a transition. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2020, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/34 "2020-12-10T00:58:56Z")
Chronos: For a very large flat earth, would there be a sharp horizon (as we see on Earth in clear weather and relatively flat areas) or would there be a blurry area so far away that there was no easy way to tell at which angle you were seeing dirt or water and at what angle you started seeing sky? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2020, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/35 "2020-12-10T01:49:13Z")
The “horizon” would be hidden behind a haze because by some distance even “clear” air will absorb/refract all light passing through it. I don’t know _what_ distance, but my guess is that nothing further away than 50 or 100 miles through surface-density air would be discernable. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252/36 "2020-12-10T02:48:46Z")
Thanks. That’s what I was picturing too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-stars-fall-up/596252.md?page=1)