As children we all learn the hard way that gravity sucks though a succession of scraped and bruised knees and elbows. We probably also learned in physics lessons that there’s the gravitational constant, denoted by a capital G.

But what I certainly didn’t learn was that while gravity sucks, it doesn’t suck consistently. In fact, gravity sucks variably, as this 2010 map from ESA’s Goce (Gravity field and Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite shows.

So it should come as no surprise that not only does gravity suck variably on Earth, it also sucks variably on the Moon.

This map comes from two NASA probes, Ebb and Flow, which formed part of the agency’s GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) project. Ebb and Flow spent 351 days orbiting in formation around the Moon before crashing to the surface at the end of 2012.

So gravity still sucks; it just sucks variably.