A Gravity Map of Earth

Gravity does not remain uniform over the surface of Earth. Individuals in certain areas would feel slightly heavier than those in other regions. A featured map video presents these variations in colors along with exaggerated highs and lows to illustrate relative strength and weakness in the gravitational field. A low area where a person would feel slightly lighter shows up just off the coast of India. A relative high appears in the mountains of Chile in South America. The causes of these irregularities do not always correspond with present surface features. Scientists hypothesize that other important factors originate in deep underground structures within Earth's mantle and may relate to the appearance of Earth in the distant past. The map was composed from data taken by NASA's twin GRACE satellites that orbited the Earth from 2002 to 2017. GRACE mapped Earth's gravity by carefully tracking tiny changes in the distance between the two satellites.