Earth's Gravitational Shape In Detail 78
RobHart writes "The European Space Agency (ESA) has released detailed information about the Earth's gravitational shape, based on data from the ESA's GOCE satellite (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer). The link includes an interesting animation of the data, using an appropriately distorted Earth."
Gravitational hole in the Indian Ocean? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool to see how the gravitation patter largely ignores the contours of the continent.
But, is there a gravitational hole in the Indian Ocean? Could it have been an asteroid? Perhaps leading to the "fast split" of Africa and India?
Just speculating.
Didn't it use to be highly classified data? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait a minute, didn't accurate geoid use to be highly classified information? As in "used for missle inertial navigation" kind of classified? I wouldn't be surprised if the German data could be imported into the U.S., but couldn't be re-exported, for example... Does anyone know more about this?