On: Flyby anomaly

[sudhirj]

Wouldn't the shape of the oceans (tides), or the elevation of the part of the earth passed over be enough to cause this amount of change?

[jandrewrogers → sudhirj]

No, there are already satellites and other sensors that continuously measure slight anomalies and variations in the gravity field. They can account for that. The best known are the GRACE satellites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Recovery_and_Climate_E...