London: A person can weigh differently at various place on Earth because of the fluctuations in Earth`s gravity, which a new high-resolution map has showed is greater than previously believed.
The gravity on Earth varies at places because the planet is not perfectly spherical or uniformly dense, New Scientist reported.
Gravity is also low at the equator because of centrifugal forces produced by earth`s rotation.
The gravity is also weaker at higher altitudes, like at Mount Everest`s summit.
Christian Hirt of Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, and his co-workers combined information about gravity from satellites and topographic data to map gravity changes between latitudes 60 degree north and 60 degree south.
The map has more than 3 billion points, and having a resolution of about 250 metres.
Their model is capable of pinpointing extreme differences in gravitational acceleration than was earlier observed.
Usual models are capable of predicting a minimum gravitational acceleration of 9.7803 m/s2 at the equator and 9.8322 m/s2 at the poles but the model built by Hirt is able to pinpoint unexpected locations having more extreme differences.
The model found that Mount Nevado Huascaran in Peru has lowest gravitational acceleration , at 9.7639 m/s2, while Arctic Ocean has the highest at the surface at 9.8337 m/s2.
ANI
