GRACE Gravity Model
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- Visualizations by:
- Adam Martin
- View full credits
The following animation displays the Earth's gravitational anomalies. The colors and heights represent the strength of gravity at the locality. Areas with less mass, such as ocean basins, show up as blue, that is less gravity, while mountains such as the Andes are red, representing the greater pull of gravity. The visualization utilizes a version of the GRACE Gravity Model 02 that has been smoothed for greater readability.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
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Animator
- Adam Martin (UMBC) [Lead]
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Scientists
- John C. Ries (University of Texas)
- Scott Luthcke (NASA/GSFC)
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Producer
- Paul Reddish (Free Spirit Films)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Datasets used in this visualization
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) K-band Intersatellite Range Rate (Collected with the KBR Horn sensor)
Dataset can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/sep/HQ_04286_GRACE.html
See more visualizations using this data setNote: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
Related pages
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ID: 11234 Produced Video
Mapping Earth's Gravity
Read moreOf the terrestrial planets in the solar system, Earth is not only the largest body but also the most massive. A calculation of its weight puts it slightly over 6.58 sextillion tons (that's 6.58x10^21 or 6,580,000,000,000,000,000,000). It's heavy because everything on our planet has mass—from the land that covers the continents to the water that fills the oceans. Earth's mass, however, isn't distributed evenly. Varying surface topography and the continuous movement of water cause different parts of the globe to have more or less mass than other regions. Since 2002, NASA's twin GRACE satellites have mapped Earth's gravity (the attractive force exerted by its mass), enabling scientists to see these differences and monitor how they change over time. Watch the visualization for a tour of Earth's gravity field. ||
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