There‘s proof. It‘s a bizarro world and the geoid below shows its image. Conclusion: the Earth sucks, everywhere. You'd think it would be a law of nature. Oddly enough, and contrary to popular sentiment here in Kosablanca, America sucks even less than Europe. Of course, you don‘t have to believe me, the ESA has just published the gnarly global facts.
It's a Bizarro World
Drop down the grabity well to find out the particulars...
On March 17, 2009 the European Space Agency launched the GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite into a polar orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia aboard a Rockot (a modified SS-19 Stiletto ICBM) rocket with a Briz-KM third stage for precise orbital insertion.
Considerable attention was paid to the aerodynamic design of the 5 meter long satellite. GOCE‘s extremely low orbit would bring into Earth&lsqou; high atmosphere. As you can see from the picture above it is quite a handsome piece of technology.
GOCE‘s primary mission is to map the world‘s gravity with the highest precision possible. The data generated by GOCE will make it possible for scientists to accurately plot ocean currents and sea level and thereby estimate the effects on those currents on the climate; determine the composition of Earth‘s interior, such as magma distribution, tectonic density, and other geologic data; as an adjunct GOCE the dataset will aid in the detemination of the thickness of polar ice; and, provide a method to determine a world wide standard of height supporting construction and surveying. With the GOCE data the world has a method to determine where sea-level is or would be over very discrete areas of Earth‘s surface.
|
The satellite orbits in a sun-synchronous dawn/dusk trajectory at a 96.7° inclination to the equator. The launch delivered an ultra-sensitive gravimeter into low Earth orbit of approximately 260 km (161 miles). The exceptionally shallow orbit is maintained by a xenon powered ion-propulsion engine.
The payload instrument—the Electrostatic Gravity Gradiometer, the most precise gravity detector ever launched into orbit (video on left)—incorporates 3 pairs of ultra-sensitive accelerometers arranged along three orthogonal axes to measure Earth‘s gravity.
|
LINKS
Earth's gravity revealed in unprecedented detail
GOCE Launch Announcement
Looking into the forces that shape our planet
A technological achievement
An intimate portrait of Earth
Facts and figures
Building ESA's gravity mapping mission posed hi-tech challenge
Flying a suite of technologies
Technology potential for the future
GOCE operations
GOCE delivers on its promise
ESA makes first GOCE dataset available
GOCE delivering data for best gravity map ever
Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer
ESA missions highlighted at world's largest scientific conference
Sun-synchronous orbit
Track GOCE
Gravity satellite yields ‘Potato Earth’ view
All the news stories from Google
I hope I entertained a bit and informed a lot and thank you for taking the time.
palantir [ aka (geek*nerd)³ ]