Geopotential

Geopotential is the potential of the Earth's gravity field. For convenience it is often defined as minus the potential energy per unit mass, so that the gravity vector is obtained as the gradient of this potential, without the minus.

Related Topics:
Earth - Gravity - Potential energy - Gradient

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Gravity is in some contexts distinguished from gravitation: gravity is then the resultant of gravitation and the centrifugal force caused by the Earth's rotation. The global mean sea surface is close to one of the equipotential surfaces of the geopotential of gravity. This equipotential surface, or surface of constant geopotential, is called the geoid.

Related Topics:
Centrifugal force - Geoid

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For the purpose of satellite orbital mechanics, the geopotential is typically described by a series expansion into spherical harmonics (spectral representation). In this context the geopotential is taken as the potential of the gravitational field of the Earth, i.e., leaving out the centrifugal potential.

Related Topics:
Spherical harmonics - Spectral

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