NASA discovers how to track Earth's shifting center of mass

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed a new method combining GPS tracking and satellite data to accurately measure Earth's center-of-mass shifts caused by atmospheric, oceanic, and water movements. The hybrid approach reduces uncertainty by incorporating low-Earth-orbit satellites and accounting for crustal distortion from water and ice weight. Previous estimates from 2017 and 2023 differed by 7 millimeters.

We're now estimating the size of the movement of Earth's mass center back and forth each year to be about half of what we believed it to be eight years ago.