Take a clay model of Earth and squish it with your fingers, and the result may look similar to the geoid — the latest and best-ever map of our planet's gravitational field. The latest Earth gravity ...

[UPDATE (April 5, 2011): It turns out some of the descriptions I used below to describe a geoid were not accurate. I refer you to this page at the University of Oklahoma for a good description. I’ve ...

When we’re told about newly released satellite images of our Earth, we imagine beautiful swathes of green and blue with the occasional white of swirling storm clouds or snow-topped mountain ranges.

It may look like a mangled lump of Play-Doh, but this colorful object is actually the most accurate digital model yet of Earth's gravity field, scientists say. Released last week, the gravity map is ...

Lumpy planet Scientists have unveiled the most accurate map of the Earth's gravity ever produced, which shows it to be shaped not like a sphere but a potato. The new data is expected to improve our ...

AMAZING GRACE Data collected by the twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) satellites have produced the most accurate map yet of Earth's geoid, or gravity field, even before the ...

For decades, textbooks and science articles have pointed to the Indian Ocean as home to Earth’s deepest geoid low, the term scientists use for depressions in the planet’s gravity field. Pull up a ...

The Earth’s geoid is the shape the planet would assume if its surface were made of water. Naturally, there’s little dispute over the shape of the geoid over the oceans, where it varies by only 100 ...

[UPDATE (April 5, 2011): It turns out some of the descriptions I used below to describe a geoid were not accurate. I refer you to this page at the University of Oklahoma for a good description. I've ...

Scientists have unveiled the most accurate map of the Earth's gravity ever produced which shows it to be shaped not like a sphere but a potato. The new data is expected to improve our understanding of ...