Les fonds marins vus de l'espace

This text is focused on the popularization of the general public, edited in a magazine connected to the sea. It explicits, in first part, all the factors which make that the surface of the sea is not horizontal. In second part are introduced the principles of the satellite altimetry which allows to measure the slope of the surface of the sea which, because of the variations of Earth' attraction from a point to an other, is directly connected to the topography of the bottom of the oceans. After a historical review of the various altimeter satellite missions launched from the beginning of 1970s to our days, the text discusses the applications allowed by the topographic images of the bottom of seas and the progress that these spatial technologies have offered, regarding the knowledge of the world oceanic domain.