GOCE Data Close Up: Around the World in Lumpy, Geoidy 3-D

By Nancy Atkinson - April 20, 2011 at 9:40 PM UTC | Planetary Science
GOCE-Australia-Asia.jpg

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Grab your red/cyan 3-D glasses and take a look at these marvelous new anaglyphs created by Nathanial Burton-Bradford from the latest data from GOCE satellite, showing Earth's gravity field – or geoid. The geoid is essentially a map of the shape our world would be its surface were covered by water and if gravity were the only thing shaping this global ocean's surface. These exaggerated views (the surface in the images of the geoid is amplified by a factor 7,000) show the most accurate model of how gravity varies across the planet. Nathanial was able to obtain high-resolution video from Dr. Rune Floberghagen of the GOCE team from which he extracted appropriate frames in order to construct hi-res anaglyph images of numerous longitudes across the globe.

In our previous article about GOCE (

Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer), we showed the entire globe and how it looks like a spinning potato. Nathanial's anaglyphs show close-ups of various parts of the globe. Above is Australia and Asia. Take a trip around the GOCE geoid 3-D world below. Remember, use the red/cyan 3-D glasses to get the full effect!

[caption id="attachment_85063" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="GOCE view of South America. Credits: ESA/HPF/DLR, anaglyph by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_85064" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="GOCE view of the US and Mexico. Credits: ESA/HPF/DLR, anaglyph by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_85065" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="GOCE view of Europe. Credits: ESA/HPF/DLR, anaglyph by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_85066" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="GOCE view of Africa.. Credits: ESA/HPF/DLR, anaglyph by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_85067" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="GOCE global view, 145 East Longitude. Credits: ESA/HPF/DLR, anaglyph by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_85068" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="GOCE global view, 140 West Longitude. Credits: ESA/HPF/DLR, anaglyph by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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Thanks to Nathanial Burton-Bradford for sharing his images.

See more at his Flickr page.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com