The “NGGM-MAGIC: A breakthrough in the understanding of the dynamics of the Earth” project

The substantial improvement in spatio-temporal accuracy that will be provided by the ESA NGGM/MAGIC mission will make it possible to take a decisive step forward in our knowledge of the dynamics of the main physical processes involving the different compartments of the Earth. Since every physical process that occurs within each terrestrial compartment involves a redistribution of mass and therefore a signal of gravity, the project intends to provide results of impact and breakthroughs in the modeling and understanding of the dynamics of Solid Earth and Fluid Earth processes, the latter including the water stored in continents and oceans, as well as in geodesy. Methodologies will be developed that link gravity signals from the various compartments of the Earth to the MAGIC raw data, finally linking each terrestrial compartment with the two pairs of satellites, the core of MAGIC. The partnership proposing the project includes researchers from different Universities and Research Institutions and has all the skills in the various sectors mentioned above, from its assets in basic science to the application ones. The following activities are planned: - Modeling of the gravitational effects of slow tectonics and seismic cycle - Modeling of the gravitational effects from volcanic processes - Development of methodologies of compact imaging/inversion for the estimation of mass changes - Tidal and ocean circulation models for gravity signal and generation of L2 data - Precipitation and river flow models, hydrological models for the TWSA - High resolution background gravity and gravity anomaly error determination and E2E simulations for geophysical processes detectability. Among the objectives of these activities, common to all partners, there will be in particular that of verifying that the spatio-temporal resolution of MAGIC allows to satisfy the requirements necessary to extract from the mission data the gravity signal that allows a significant advance in the basic research and related applications in the various geophysical and geodetic components. The project is funded by the Italian Space Agency - ASI.