LAGEOS Stories

NASA Watches Earth’s Weight, Finds Center of Mass

Seasonal changes redistribute enough water around Earth to shift the planet’s center of mass back and forth by fractions of an inch relative to its geometric center. NASA scientists are on the case, tracking the oscillations because Earth’s center of…

Now 40, NASA’s LAGEOS Set the Bar for Studies of Earth

On May 4, 1976, NASA launched a cannonball-shaped satellite that transformed studies of Earth’s shape, rotation and gravity field. LAGEOS – short for Laser Geodynamic Satellite – was the first NASA orbiter dedicated to the precision measurement technique called laser…