ESA Launches GOCE To Map Earth's Gravity

DSG2 sends in an ESA press release which reads in part: "This afternoon, the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite developed by the European Space Agency was lofted into a near-Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit by a Rockot launcher lifting off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia. GOCE is the first of a new family of ESA satellites designed to study our planet and its environment in order to enhance our knowledge and understanding of Earth-system processes and their evolution, to enable us to address the challenges of global climate change. In particular, GOCE will measure the minute differences in the Earth's gravity field around the globe." One consequence of mapping the planet's geoid in finer detail is that ocean currents can be limned more accurately. This BBC article from 2007 goes into some detail about this application.

Comments

height

[Silm]

what really interests me is the fact that this satellite in such a low orbit that it actually has wings and an aerodynamic body to cope with the small amounts of air on that height. Those wings combined with the ion motor's onboard make it almost a plane/ satellite hybrid.

this and that

[girlintraining]

Article title: ESA Launches GOCE To Map Earth's Gravity
Article quote: ...to enable us to address the challenges of global climate change.

Great. Now we're going to have to start ejecting people into orbit because they stayed under their carbon credits quota, but they had too much gravitational pull and that's damaging the environment. I can just see the green movement in five years: "Stop warping spacetime! Excercise! And screw the whales."

Re:Formation of the moon

[khayman80]

GRACE has found what many believe to be an ancient impact crater in Antarctica. It might have been responsible for splitting Antarctica away from Australia, and might have been responsible for the Permian extinction. The researchers note that it formed 260 million years ago- around the right time, and it was directly opposite to the usual culprit- the Siberian traps. It's possible that the impact sent shockwaves around the world, which converged on the antipodal point and triggered the Siberian traps.

But that's a "new" 260 million year old meteorite. What you're talking about is a 3 billion year old impact with something the size of Mars. Plate tectonics have probably erased that evidence. Also, large scale impacts are HARDER to find than smaller impacts because large impactors penetrate the crust, and magma rises up to fill the crater.

Interesting notion, but I'd be surprised if it's possible...