The Earth gravity field in the time of satellites

Physical geodesy is by definition the science which studies and calculates the Earth’s gravity field and its physical form. Satellite physical geodesy exploits satellite techniques to solve the problems established in physical geodesy. During the second half of the twentieth century, satellite techniques allowed to make outstanding advances in the knowledge of the gravity field of our planet, contributing to the estimation of more and more accurate geoid models, at higher and higher spatial and temporal resolution. In this way, satellite geodesy missions indeed enabled scientists to gain better knowledge of the shape of the Earth, of fundamental geophysical phenomena, of the shape of the oceans surface, of sea currents, of ice sheets and of climatological phenomena.