Astronomy Picture of the Day -- The Potsdam Gravity Potato

NASA ^ | December 15, 2014 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Why do some places on Earth have higher gravity than others? Sometimes the reason is unknown. To help better understand the Earth's surface, sensitive measurments by the orbiting satellites GRACE and CHAMP were used to create a map of Earth's gravitational field. Since a center for studying this data is in Potsdam, Germany, and since the result makes the Earth look somewhat like a potato, the resulting geoid has been referred to as the Potsdam Gravity Potato. High areas on this map, colored red, indicate areas where gravity is slightly stronger than usual, while in blue areas gravity is slightly weaker. Many bumps and valleys on the Potsdam Gravity Potato can be attributed to surface features, such as the North Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Himalayan Mountains, but others cannot, and so might relate to unusually high or low sub-surface densities. Maps like this also help calibrate changes in the Earth's surface including variable ocean currents and the melting of glaciers. The above map was made in 2005, but more recent and more sensitive gravity maps of Earth was produced in 2011.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: CHAMP, GRACE, GFZ, NASA, DLR]

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

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[urbanpovertylawcenter]

I AM FAIRLY CERTAIN THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD IS GREATEST UNDER WHAT EVER SCALE I AN STANDING UPON.

[muir_redwoods]

Any idea what he Ange of variation is over the globe? Does a standard kilogram vary by a few milligrams?

[logi_cal869]

Anyone else click through to the article, “Gravity is Climate”?

Notice they refer to Greenland, loss of ice measured by gravity and yet there’s not a single picture of the mapping of Greenland (let alone any before/after analysis)...

Somehow I just knew there’d be some link to ‘climate change’...

[trebb]

This URL gives a description of gravity variations. Too lazy to make it a link...

[trebb]

And now for the URL: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=465

Sorry ...

[left that other site]

Now we know why Hindu Yogis are able to practice self-levitation!

[ExGeeEye]

"You called?"

[SunkenCiv]

The Hindu Booboos are still unable.

[SunkenCiv]

thanks trebb, wonder why the link didn’t go live?

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=465

[SunkenCiv]

I grok that.

[SunkenCiv]

The first hint of the density variation was detected, if memory serves, sometime after the IGY (which lasted much more than one year), and was first noticed in the SW Pacific.

Greenland hasn’t lost ice, it has gained it, and since WWII. Systematic measurements using consistent methods haven’t been used for much more then the last 20 years. IOW, the baseline being used for the claim is analogous to trying to draw a mile long straight line with a pencil and one inch ruler.

[Revelation 911]

“I don’t remember eatin corn”

[left that other site]

Ha Ha Ha...Smarter than the average poster, you are!

[left that other site]

LOL!

[outofsalt]

Wiki has this gif which is not as spudish.

[DavidLSpud]

And if I remember correctly the earth’s moon

has Masscons...Mass concentrations at different points

on the surface...making the orbits...

perturbed?? ( ; )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_(astronomy)

[MrB]

Well, they can levitate, but only inside a box where you can’t see them.

[MrB]

I believe that that might be the reason for it’s being “tidally locked” with the earth (same face to the earth at all times).