Moons, tides, and GRACE (2009 Outreach)
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009I’m a scientist at the University of Colorado studying ocean tides. Before I started this research project, all I knew about the tides was what I’d seen at the beach. We can watch the tide flow in and out every 12 hours at the beach, but this only tells us about the tide at that one beach. I’m trying to measure how big the tides are everywhere in the ocean, at all the beaches in the world and even in the middle of the open ocean.
What makes this possible is a satellite system called GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment). GRACE is a set of 2 satellites flying over the Earth measuring how strong gravity is at each point on the Earth’s surface. (more…)
