Significance makes Earth look like a potato

A satellite is record variations in Earth's significance gives us a different view of our planet from space looks like a potato. And yet, the information provided by this model is the sharpest view we have of how gravity varies across the Earth. The device was released by the team working on the European satellite GOCE.

It's a highly exaggerated view, but illustrates well how the gravitational attraction manifests from the mass of rock under our feet is not the same everywhere. Gravity is strongest in yellow areas and weaker in the blue. Scientists say that the information generated by the super-fast spacecraft is bringing a major change in our understanding of the force that pulls us down and how it is reshaping some key processes on Earth.

The higher of these new approaches is a clearer view of how the oceans are moving and how they redistribute the heat of the sun around the world, information that is essential for climate studies. People interested in earthquakes are also poring over the Goce results. The violent shocks that hit Japan last month, and Chile, in 2010, occurred because there was a massive movement of rock. Antarctica is a land that has broad information needs its gravitational field. Goce should provide a three dimensional view of what was happening within the Earth.

"Even if these earthquakes were caused by large shifts in the Earth, at the altitude of the satellite signals are very small. But we should still see them in the information," said Dr Johannes Bouman, the German Geodetic Research Institute (DGFI, by its acronym in English). Technically speaking, the model used is what the researchers defined as the geoid. It is one of the simplest concepts, but essentially describes the surface "level" of an idealized world.

Examine a potato and irregularities. Put simply, the surface containing these pieces and projections is where gravity is the same. Described another way, if you put a ball on this potato, the ball would roll not because, from their perspective, there is no "up" or "down" on the undulating surface. According to this slightly odd way of looking at things, a boat off the coast of Europe (bright yellow) can be placed 180 meters "higher" than a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean (dark blue) and continue in the same plane level.

GOCE results also have application to seismology

However, this is the trick gravity plays on Earth you as the space rock on which we live is not a perfect sphere and its mass is distributed evenly. Enjoyment, an acronym that means Ocean Circulation Explorer and Gravity, was released in March 2009. It flies pole to pole at an altitude of only 254.9 km, the lowest orbit of any research satellite currently in operation.

The spacecraft carries three pairs of blocks of high precision platinum within its gradiometer instrument that detects the accelerations that are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the earth gravity experienced. This is what allows you to design a map with the most noticeable differences in the gravitational pull exerted by the mass of the planet from one place to another, from the great mountain ranges to the deepest ocean cracks.

Two months of initial observations were transformed into a geoid which was released in June last year. The latest version, released in Munich at a workshop for Goce scientists, includes an addition of four months of data. Each update should produce an improvement in quality. "The more information you add, less blah-blah will on solutions, and errors will start to decline," says Dr. Rune Floberghagen, the GOCE mission manager for the European Space Agency. "And, of course, best known as the geoid, better knowledge will be acquired using the geoid"

He adds: "We are witnessing the emergence of new information in areas such as the Himalayas, the Andes mountain chain, and particularly in Antarctica. Entire continent is eager to have more information about the gravitational field, which now we are providing. " The mission has funding until 2012, when - as all missions of Earth Observation European Space Agency - must find its own funding between member states.