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Mapping Gravity

Posted by michael on from the slim-fast dept.

overThruster writes: "No, you don't need to drink the water... Gravity is less strong in India--enough so that you weigh almost 1% less there. See BBC story about NASA's gravity map." Here's another story about the mission, and the GRACE home page (or NASA's less-informative page).

5 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Re:okaaaaaay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    OK, so the standard kilo mass is in france. If you bring a mass there to match it up to the kilo mass, and it matches, you've got your own standard kilo. Now, take it to india, and use it to calibrate machines, including the airport scales... The same standard kilo is used back in the US. So, that won't actually work -- the bag will weigh less in India, but the kilo will too!

  2. Launches... by PRickard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So if things weigh less in India, wouldn't launching rockets and shuttles from there be easier? A 500,000-pound rocket would only weigh 495,000 in India - not a huge savings overall, but you could reduce fuel consumption and save money or go a bit further on the same amount of fuel. And the location is about as far south as Florida, so that's enough planetary curve for them. Should we expect to see more US companies building launch facilities in SE Asia after this report has been out a while?

    --

    == Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====

    1. Re:Launches... by mgv · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Possibly not.

      Shipping things at ground level is alot cheaper than launching things.

      There are alot of issues in getting a maximum usable payload.

      But other things are probably more important, such as the rotational forces from being near the equator, etc.

      Michael

      --
      There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
  3. Re:Gravity increasing over time due to space dust by Dyolf+Knip · · Score: 4, Insightful

    2.5 Tera-tons might seem like a lot to you and me, but it's still less than a millionth of Earth's total mass. Assuming that it remains constant at that rate and losing none of the gains to outgassing (or it's offset by periodic large impacts), to accumulate a 1% increase in mass would take a half trillion years. Don't hold your breath.

    --
    Dyolf Knip
  4. Re:Except.. by smaughster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, what you are referring to is something called the twin paradox, but it is not a paradox since the cases aren't exactly the same. Why? If you move at high speed away from earth and return, then at a certain point in time, energy had to be used to make you change your velocity and head back to earth. Either you used the brakes, turned and accelerated again, or a giant with a large bat gave you a smack, but whatever way you look at it: work is done to make the change happen. This is not the case with the earth. So the earth might appear to move away at near light speeds, but time will not pass slower on earth with respect to your frame :)

    --
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