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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).

2 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. 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?

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

  2. 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.

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    Dyolf Knip