This map may be one of the most amazing and unique images ever
created of Earth. Using just two months of data, a gravity-
measuring satellite made the first map of Earth’s gravitational
field. It’s a surprising and beautiful image of a force that we
would never expect to be able to see – and yes, different places
on Earth experience different gravitational pulls. The map is
technically known as a geoid, and it was created by the
satellite known as GOCE: Gravity field and steady-state Ocean
Circulation Explorer. The satellite takes precise measurements
of the Earth’s gravitational field from an orbit so low that it
nearly falls out of the sky. The geoid is basically a level
which measures even the smallest changes in the Earth’s
gravitational field. The resulting map is what the oceans would
look like if there were no tides, no current, no wind and no
temperature changes. Because of this, the geoid will be useful
to oceanographers who are studying the effects of those factors
on the world’s oceans. But it can