What does "it" refer to?

[optimistic pessimist]

Dear all,
In the passage below, what does "it" refer to? The earth?

Until a few hundred years ago, men believed that the earth stood still; that the sun, the moon, and the stars moved around it. It's easy to understand why this was so. After all, that's the way it looked. And nobody could feel the earth moving.

Thank you! OP

[Barb_D]

The "it" in bold simply means "the situation" not "the Earth."
It could read "That's they way things seemed" with "things" also being "the situation in general."