geodesy

Today, NOAA and the U.S. Census Bureau will mark the new U.S. center of population.  Hartville, a town of about 600 people in central southern Missouri, is the town closest to the point where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid…

To acknowledge the importance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the world today, we celebrate GIS Day annually on the second Wednesday of November. GIS Day provides an international forum for users of GIS technology to…

This is an airport in Chandler, Arizona, shot from a mounted camera on a NOAA aircraft. You may be surprised to learn that the…

Geodesy is a science that covers the Earth itself. It's the reason we know where we are, and how we can make maps of where we are and where we want to go. In this episode, learn how this science with an unfamiliar name shapes much of…

Many organizations use geodesy to map the U.S. shoreline, determine land boundaries, and improve transportation and navigation safety. To measure points on the Earth’s surface, geodesists assign coordinates (similar to a unique…

NOAA's National Geodetic Survey defines and manages the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) - a consistent coordinate system that defines latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity,…

This NASA image shows Earth from space. The image is a combination of data from two satellites. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite…

The international date line, shown here as a yellow line, defines the boundary between calendar dates. The…

Geodesists measure and monitor the Earth’s size and shape, geodynamic phenomena (e.g., tides and polar motion), and gravity field to determine the exact coordinates of any point on Earth and…

The Earth is in a constant state of change. Earth’s crust, called the lithosphere, consists of 15 to 20 moving tectonic plates. The plates can be thought of like pieces of a cracked shell that rest on the hot, molten rock of…

What does this have to do with the OCEAN service? The National Geodetic Survey (part of the National Ocean Service) measures and monitors our ever-changing planet by mapping its gravity field and determining the precise…

Lines of longitude, also called meridians, are imaginary lines that divide the Earth. They run north to south from pole to pole, but they measure the distance east or west. Longitude is measured in…