Gravity according to GOCE

GOCE is a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite with a mission to take very precise readings of the "imperfections" in the Earth's gravity field. We can't actually feel the small variations in gravity on our planet, but they are enough to affect sea level, for example, on a local scale. And the latter is used to monitor evolutions in our climate (see this Enjoy Space feature). The first map of variations in the gravity field using GOCE data (illustration below) was presented at ESA's Living Planet Symposium (see this article).

ESA press release

Published 30 June 2010

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