Ad
related to: what is physical geodesy
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Physical geodesy is the study of the physical properties of Earth's gravity and its potential field (the geopotential), with a view to their application in geodesy.
Geodesy or geodetics [1] is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D.It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets or circumplanetary systems. [2]
In geophysics and physical geodesy, a geopotential model is the theoretical analysis of measuring and calculating the effects of Earth's gravitational field (the geopotential). The Earth is not exactly spherical, mainly because of its rotation around the polar axis that makes its shape slightly oblate.
Modern geodesy tends to retain the ellipsoid of revolution as a reference ellipsoid and treat triaxiality and pear shape as a part of the geoid figure: they are represented by the spherical harmonic coefficients , and , respectively, corresponding to degree and order numbers 2.2 for the triaxiality and 3.0 for the pear shape.
Geophysics (/ ˌ dʒ iː oʊ ˈ f ɪ z ɪ k s /) is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis.
The first EGM, EGM84, was defined as a part of WGS84 along with its reference ellipsoid.WGS84 combines the old GRS 80 with the then-latest data, namely available Doppler, satellite laser ranging, and Very Long Baseline Interferometry observations, and a new least squares method called collocation. [3]
A brief history of geodesy from NASA. [1]The history of geodesy (/dʒiːˈɒdɪsi/) began during antiquity and ultimately blossomed during the Age of Enlightenment.. Many early conceptions of the Earth held it to be flat, with the heavens being a physical dome spanning over it.
The geoid surface is irregular, unlike the reference ellipsoid (which is a mathematical idealized representation of the physical Earth as an ellipsoid), but is considerably smoother than Earth's physical surface.