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New NASA renderings show Earth as lumpy · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to takeout Welcome back to the conversation corner.
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  Speaker 1: From Apollo eleven Artemis two NASA space missions have provided
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  Speaker 1: numerous images of a beautiful, seemingly smooth, perfectly round Earth,
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  Speaker 1: but now new renderings from NASA reveal something quite different.
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  Speaker 1: Viral measurements of the planet's gravitational field show our home
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  Speaker 1: looks more like a lumpy potato than a blue marble.
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  Speaker 1: Senior science editor at Wired, Brian conjoins me, Now, Brian,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here. Is what we just saw
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  Speaker 1: more realistic and therefore truer to what we should understand
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  Speaker 1: about the planet. And if so, why is that important?
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  Speaker 2: I would say it's realistic in the sense that is
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  Speaker 2: measuring something important.
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  Speaker 3: It's not exactly how the plant looks. I'd say this.
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  Speaker 2: Looks like a lumpy potato that we just saw our
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  Speaker 2: plants probably maybe let's say a little bit more like
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  Speaker 2: an orange. So there are some lumps and bumps, but
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  Speaker 2: it is on the whole celebrity smooth space. But what
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  Speaker 2: this does show is something really important, shows the state
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  Speaker 2: of gravitational pull across the planet.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, something that.
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  Speaker 2: Has a lot of mass, like a mountain will have
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  Speaker 2: more gravitational pole than a valley, and so that's what
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  Speaker 2: this is showing, essentially, is like the different levels of
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  Speaker 2: gravity in different places, and it's showing what it would
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  Speaker 2: look like if those are the only forces, along with rotation,
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  Speaker 2: basically stretching the world's oceans out. So luckily we're not
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  Speaker 2: living on this lumpy Earth. We're living on a nice
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  Speaker 2: round planet. But in an exaggerated form, this is what
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  Speaker 2: the forces of gravity look like.
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  Speaker 1: And how are these renderings made, Brian.
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  Speaker 3: So they're made using these really really powerful satellites.
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  Speaker 2: NASA has a couple of really cool satellites that are
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  Speaker 2: able to measure these minute differences in gravity. So you
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  Speaker 2: and I we're not going to feel it. If we're
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  Speaker 2: standing on the top of Mount Everest. Might feel lightheaded
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  Speaker 2: because the air is then, but the gravity doesn't feel
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  Speaker 2: that difference to us there versus down sea level. But
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  Speaker 2: these NASA satellites are able to take these measurements, and
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  Speaker 2: they've been doing so for about a decade and a half.
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  Speaker 3: They've gathered over a billion.
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  Speaker 2: Pieces of data to basically make these very very specific
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  Speaker 2: measures of what it looks like on the ground.
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  Speaker 3: And so that's how you end up with is really
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  Speaker 3: stunning visualization.
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  Speaker 1: And as we all know, water covers a great portion
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  Speaker 1: of the Earth's surface and there is a water ice
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  Speaker 1: melt component to this as well. Tell me about it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, So you know what they're able to do.
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  Speaker 2: So you have this cool visual and that's great for
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  Speaker 2: us to be able to look at. But what scientists
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  Speaker 2: are looking at is not just what's you know, sort
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  Speaker 2: of this lumpy, bumpy earth.
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  Speaker 3: They're looking at what's changing over time.
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  Speaker 2: And what they've been able to see is that the
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  Speaker 2: Antarctic and Greenland areas where climate change is heating things
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  Speaker 2: up and causing billions and tons of ice disappear as
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  Speaker 2: it melts, it changed the it changes the gravity in
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  Speaker 2: those locations, and so this map is actually, you know,
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  Speaker 2: what's the day behind this map is what's able to
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  Speaker 2: help scientists understand what is going on in these remote
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  Speaker 2: and really fragile places where it's really hard to get
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  Speaker 2: instruments and to have observations full time on the ground.
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  Speaker 2: And so yeah, what you're getting here is not just
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  Speaker 2: cool visual. It's cool visual and really important science behind it.
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  Speaker 1: Brian, we love new words or words that are new
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  Speaker 1: to us on the show, and goid is a new
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  Speaker 1: word to me. And this is described piece as a
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  Speaker 1: new geoid model. What does that mean?
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  Speaker 3: So the gaid is the shape that we have here.
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  Speaker 2: It's just a fancy word to describe the lumpy shape
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  Speaker 2: that we see.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we can when we.
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  Speaker 2: Look at the Earth from space, it's a nice, lovely sphere.
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  Speaker 2: When we look at the gravity field, it's a little
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  Speaker 2: bit different. And so geoid is basically describing the shape
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  Speaker 2: of the Earth actually the shape of the oceans if
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  Speaker 2: we didn't have these other forces spreading out the oceans
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  Speaker 2: across the Earth. This is what it would look like
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  Speaker 2: if they're all spread according to the forces of gravity
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  Speaker 2: around the world.
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  Speaker 1: So if I'm a scientist who's interested in this imagery
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  Speaker 1: and I look at this, what are the kind of
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  Speaker 1: conclusions I might draw?
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  Speaker 2: So there's the ice stuff that we talked about. In addition,
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  Speaker 2: you can also look at other things like groundwater. So
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  Speaker 2: during the drought in California and the twenty tents, there
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  Speaker 2: was so much groundwater pulled out of the ground that
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  Speaker 2: gravity actually changed there. We've also seen similar things happen
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  Speaker 2: in Australia and elsewhere. So we're able to both look
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  Speaker 2: at the poles and these really far off places and
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  Speaker 2: understand what's going on there, but we're also able to
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  Speaker 2: look at places that are maybe a little bit closer
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  Speaker 2: to home, but it can be you know, benefit from
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  Speaker 2: having a bird's eye or a satellite si view of
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  Speaker 2: and so there's a lot of ways that scientists are
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  Speaker 2: able to both look at this in terms of what
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  Speaker 2: is happening with the climate, what's happening with our natural resources,
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  Speaker 2: and also just to understand the sort of shape of
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  Speaker 2: the Earth and what's going on, you know, the deposits
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  Speaker 2: under of you know, whether it's iron, tatum or whatever
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  Speaker 2: underneath the surface.
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  Speaker 1: Wireds Brian Kahan. Perfect stuff. I really appreciate your time.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you.