The Earth's gravitational shape

This image published by NASA shows the Earth's geoid—a representation of Earth's surface gravity. Released on July 15, it is a 3D visualization of the geoid based on gravity, showing what it would look like.

Earth is described as an oblate spheroid—flattened at the poles—though that term must be understood as a highly precise technical definition. Visually, Earth is actually a nearly perfect sphere; if you were in space, you wouldn't see that polar flattening—no matter the distance or the number of photos taken, that variation wouldn't be visible.

The deviation from a perfect sphere is only about 0.3% to 0.4%. To put this in perspective, if we are being strict about the definition of a sphere, soccer balls—which are called "spheres"—actually aren't; FIFA regulations allow for a sphericity tolerance of 1.5% to 2%. Earth's deviation is just 0.3% or 0.4%, meaning Earth is far more spherical than a soccer ball.

The point I want to make is that the Earth's polar flattening is not something we could perceive visually; it is a nearly perfect sphere. While there is a difference between the equatorial radius and the polar radius, it is visually imperceptible. Furthermore, the gravitational aspect—which is what we are looking at here—has been exaggerated so that we can see the variations in surface gravity.

All of this is based on data compiled from over 15 years of observations—as this is not the first image of its kind to be published—and the features have been magnified 10,000 times so they are clearly visible to the naked eye.

The first thing to notice is that bulge up above Europe—that red bump that looks like something out of an old cartoon; that marks the area of ​​highest surface gravity. It is located in Iceland, where the surface gravity creates a rise of over 85 meters—essentially an 85-meter accumulation. Conversely, the minimum—though not visually apparent since the Earth is essentially a solid mass—would be the gravitational depression in the Indian Ocean south of India; that blue zone represents the lowest point. Gravitationally speaking—specifically regarding surface gravity—the level there drops to -106 meters at the center of that gravitational well.

In other words, relative to Earth's mean sea level, the surface at that point in the Indian Ocean sits 106 meters lower; if you were traveling there from Africa or Malaysia, you would effectively descend 106 meters by the time you reached southern India. You wouldn't actually notice it—since the area spans 3 million square kilometers, the slope would be negligible—but that 106-meter difference exists because gravity is weaker there.

You would also notice the difference if you weighed yourself there: you would weigh 4 grams less. If you weighed 80 kg, at the center of that gravitational depression you would weigh 4 grams less, because Earth's surface gravity is slightly lower at that location.

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