The reason that the earth is depicted in maps with the north pole on the top is because when maps were first produced, most of the world known to the map makers was north of the equator. My question is: since we don't know where the top of the universe is, how do we know that globes and maps don't depict Earth upside down? Is it possible that the south pole is really at the top? Or maybe the poles should be pointing east and west, with the earth revolving around the sun like a car wheel, on it's side.