Overview
- NASA and JPL publicized a three‑dimensional geoid visualization in releases on July 24–25 that drew wide media and social‑media attention.
- The graphic represents the geoid, an equipotential surface showing how mean sea level would lie if oceans were perfectly still, not the planet’s outer surface.
- Scientists built the model by combining long records from satellite gravimetry missions including ESA’s GOCE and NASA’s GRACE into the GOCO06s product using many years of observations.
- To make millimeter‑to‑meter gravity differences visible the visualization’s vertical scale is amplified roughly 7,000–10,000 times, with geoid heights ranging about +85 meters in Iceland to −106 meters south of India.
- Researchers say the map is a practical tool for studying the water cycle, groundwater and long‑term sea‑level changes and that the image echoes a 2011 GFZ Potsdam graphic that has often been miscaptioned as the Earth’s literal shape.