NASA Astronaut says earth is square

OK, so he didn't exactly.

Today I heard Mario Runco, a former NASA astronaut give a talk at his undergraduate alma matter. It was a fluff talk (ie, not technical) but he tried explaining various things about space flight to us. The first thing he explained was an orbit. To explain orbits he drew a picture of a square Earth, and then explained what happens when you increase the number of sides of a square to the limit - you get a circle. Thus the concept was simplified.

It was actually a fun talk. He showed us great pictures of interesting stuff, including lake Chad, Madagascar, typhoons, and Israel. You can see the boundary between Israel and her neighbors because of the change in vegetation.

Overall it was a fun talk.