Statue of Andrei Sakharov at the Univirsity of St. Petersburg

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born on May 21, 1921 in Moscow, then in the USSR. He took part to Soviet nuclear program and seeing the weapons power helped him to develop his activism against atomic proliferation. In 1975 he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

The geoid measured by the GOCE satellite (photo ESA)

The GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite was launched in an ESA mission about two years ago with the aim of taking measurements of the geoid with a precision never achieved before. With its gradiometer, an very sensitive gravity detection instrument, the GOCE has collected enough data to create the most accurate image of the Earth we’ve ever seen.