It is primarily concerned with positioning within the temporally varying gravitational field. Geodesy in the German-speaking world is divided into "higher geodesy" (""Erdmessung"" or ""höhere Geodäsie""), which is concerned with measuring Earth on the global scale, and "practical geodesy" or "engineering geodesy" (""Ingenieurgeodäsie""), which is concerned with measuring specific parts or regions of Earth, and which includes surveying. Such geodetic operations are also applied to other astronomical bodies in the solar system. It is also the science of measuring and understanding Earth's geometric shape, orientation in space, and gravitational field.