Gravity is a force of attraction that exists between any two masses, any two bodies, any two particles. Gravity is not just the attraction between objects and the Earth.
A new satellite mission sheds light on Earth's gravity field and provides clues about changing sea levels.
NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission, launched in 2002, provides the first opportunity to directly measure groundwater changes from space. By observing changes in the Earth’s gravity field, scientists can estimate changes in the amount of water stored in a region, which cause changes in gravity.
Data from NASA satellite observations provide information about Earth's mean gravity field and inform monthly maps of the time-variable gravity field, both of which are useful tools for scientists as they study the planet's changing climate.
This map, created using data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, reveals variations in the Earth's gravity field. Dark blue areas show areas with lower than normal gravity, such as the Indian Ocean (far right of image) and the Congo river basin in Africa. Dark red areas indicate areas with higher than normal gravity.
GRAVITATIONAL PULL See Gravity GRAVITY The force of attraction between two objects which is influenced by the mass of the two objects and the distance between the two objects. GYROSCOPE A heavy wheel or disk mounted so that its axis can turn freely in one or more directions. A spinning gyroscope tends to resist change in the direction of its axis.
The cluster does not behave as scientists would expect it to if only the visible matter is generating the gravity present in the cluster. 'Dark matter' theory suggests that a huge amount of dark (invisible to direct observation) matter, interacting gravitationally with the normal, visible matter in the universe, exists.