A Gravity Map of Earth
Image unavailable
March 24, 2026
The Earth has carried you around the Sun again, steady as ever, while the stars kept their patient watch.
A Gravity Map of Earth
Birthday · March 24, 2026
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
This archive entry has no still image to save. You can open its original APOD below.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published March 24, 2026 · Video still. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Is gravity the same over the surface of the Earth? No -- in some places you will feel slightly heavier than others. The featured Earth map video shows in colors and exaggerated highs and lows where the gravitational field of Earth is relatively strong and weak. A low spot, where you would feel slightly lighter, can be seen just off the coast of India, in blue, while a relative high occurs in the mountains of Chile in South America. The cause of these irregularities does not always follow present surface features. Scientists hypothesize that other important factors lie in deep underground structures in Earth's mantle and may be related to the Earth's appearance in the distant past. The featured map was composed from data taken by NASA's twin GRACE satellites that orbited the Earth from 2002 to 2017. GRACE mapped Earth's gravity by carefully tracking tiny changes in the distance between the two satellites.