Through a 3D animation, NASA shows the different levels of gravity across planet Earth. Indonesia turned out to be one of the areas with the strongest gravity.
To note, Earth's gravity helps us and objects can stand or 'stick' on the ground. Is this why most Indonesians are good at lying down? This claim is just a joke and there is no scientific proof. But what is clear, scientifically, is that the pull of gravity in each part of the world is different.
Quoted from the NASA website, gravity is determined by mass and because Earth's mass is not evenly distributed across the planet, gravity also tends to change over time. NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is helping scientists see the degree of gravitational pull across the planet.
Several years ago, NASA shared a 3D visualization of the gravity model, on a geoid map of the Earth, which is a map showing the true shape of the Earth, based on data collected using GRACE, which shows surprising variations in Earth's gravitational field.
The colors highlight the gravitational anomaly as measured by GRACE. For the uninitiated, gravity is defined by the value of gravity for an "ideal" perfectly smooth Earth, whereas gravitational anomaly is a measurement for gravity's deviation from the standard.
As shown in the animated image that can be viewed by clicking this link, the red areas highlight gravity that is stronger than the ideal and subtle, while the blue highlights areas with weaker gravity than ideal.
A moving 3D globe showing a high area in northwest South America has a higher gravitational pull compared to something like southern India which gradually becomes bluer as it reaches its edges suggesting a lower gravitational force in this region.
However, in northern India, the Himalayas mark another dark red region. A number of other countries marked in red include Chile, Turkey, New Zealand, and Indonesia.
About the GRACE Twin satellites themselves, it is an initiative involving Space Research at the University of Texas, Austin, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the German Space Agency and the German Research Center for Geosciences Potsdam, launched in March 2002.
They made detailed measurements of Earth's gravitational field, which aided discoveries about gravity and Earth's natural systems. Unfortunately, these twin satellites ended their science mission on October 27 2017, after a battery problem occurred in September of that year. This satellite duo no longer works and is eventually deactivated.
