An alternative representation of the earth's gravitational field in cartesian coordinates
Abstract
The standard representation of the earth's gravitational field in terms of spherical harmonics shows some disadvantages e. g. the classical singularities at the poles or the behavior when changing the coordinate system. Due to the tendency to represent the terrestrial position vector in cartesian coordinates, the purpose of this paper is to introduce an alternative representation of the gravitational field in cartesian coordinates. Both a cartesian harmonic and a cartesian non-harmonic representation are derived, their properties are investigated and the resulting advantages are pointed out.
- Publication:
-
Symposium on Space Techniques for Geodynamics, Volume 1
- Pub Date:
- 1984
- Bibcode:
- 1984stg.....1..121J
- Keywords:
-
- Cartesian Coordinates;
- Earth Gravitation;
- Gravitational Fields;
- Planetary Gravitation;
- Comparison;
- Computation;
- Orthogonal Functions;
- Spherical Harmonics