EVENT: Center for Space Research Director and Aerospace Engineer Byron D. Tapley from The University of Texas at Austin will discuss 3 1/2 years of satellite findings from NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites.
WHEN: 5 p.m., (CST), Tuesday, Dec. 6.
WHERE: Press conference in San Francisco, Calif., at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Reporters can listen in to the conference/ask questions by phone, by calling 1-800-857-1081, or 210-234-6614 for international calls. Submit pass code: NASA AGU, and use confirmation number: 6992238.
BACKGROUND: NASA’s GRACE I and GRACE II satellites have been orbiting 310 miles above the Earth since March 17, 2002, to provide precise maps every 30 days of the planet’s changing gravity field. The maps are up to 1,000 times more accurate than previous ones and result from measurements of slight changes in the distance between the two GRACE satellites using on-board instrumentation. Minute variations in the Earth’s gravitational field pull the satellites together or push them apart from their orbits about 137 miles apart. Tapley, the mission’s principal investigator and holder of the Clare Cockrell Williams Centennial Chair in Engineering, will discuss how the gravity field maps have allowed mission scientists to determine the Dec. 26, 2004, Great Sumatra Earthquake’s impact on the Earth’s gravity field. The findings may shed new light on earthquake physics and mechanics. He will also discuss measurements of ice mass loss for Greenland, the only direct measurements available of such changes linked to the global climate. And he will summarize satellite data on the detailed movements of the strongest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which links the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins and significantly influences global climate. GRACE is jointly implemented for five years by NASA and the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt, or DLR). The GRACE satellites can also track water movement beneath the Earth’s surface, changes in the planet’s interior structure and changing sea-levels heights.
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