{"id":684749,"date":"2021-03-22T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=684749"},"modified":"2021-03-22T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T16:00:00","slug":"keeping-track-of-spacecraft-as-earths-water-alters-its-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=684749","title":{"rendered":"Keeping track of spacecraft as Earth\u2019s water alters its spin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Ocean_surface_currents_card_full.png\" alt=\"Ocean surface currents\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mass is constantly being redistributed around our planet, as Earth\u2019s atmosphere, oceans and other bodies of water on and under the surface melt, shift and stir.<\/li>\n<li>This mass redistribution alters Earth\u2019s centre of gravity, which in turn speeds up and slows down the planet&#8217;s spin\u00a0\u2013 and so the length of the day\u00a0\u2013 as well as changing the orientation of its &#8216;spin axis&#8217;.<\/li>\n<li>These changes to Earth\u2019s spin and orientation occur over relatively short timescales of days and weeks, and threaten communication between ground stations and missions in orbit and across the Solar System.<\/li>\n<li>ESA is working on its own algorithm to predict Earth\u2019s orientation with extreme accuracy. Early tests show the new ESA algorithm outperforms those being used today from external providers, marking an important step in ensuring Europe\u2019s independent access to space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n Click here for original story, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Enabling_Support\/Operations\/Keeping_track_of_spacecraft_as_Earth_s_water_alters_its_spin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Keeping track of spacecraft as Earth\u2019s water alters its spin<\/a>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: ESA Space News&#013;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mass is constantly being redistributed around our planet, as Earth\u2019s atmosphere, oceans and other bodies of water on and under the surface melt, shift and stir. This mass redistribution alters&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":684750,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ESA"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=684749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/684750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=684749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=684749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=684749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}