NASA APOD – The Potsdam Gravity Potato…. a cool representation of Earth #science

If you have never checked out the NASA astronomy picture of the day (APOD), you should check it out. Here is a really cool post from earlier this week!!

The Potsdam Gravity Potato 
Image Credit: CHAMPGRACEGFZNASADLRExplanation: 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 measurements by the orbiting satellites GRACE andCHAMP were used to create a map of Earth’s gravitational field. Since a center for studying these data is in PotsdamGermany, 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 were produced in 2011.

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