How Heavy Is The Earth ?
Now despite science coming forward in leaps and bounds the simple question of how much the Earth weighs isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Certainly placing the earth onto a massive set of weighing scales isn’t an option. So how do we measure the total weight of the earth ?
Well scientists initially went about this task by trying to estimate the weight of a very large mountain and then simply scaling that figure up. However this method led to some peculiar results and since then the mathematics and calculations involved have changed taking into consideration further factors such as the volume and overall density of the planet.
If you combine the above with weighted samples of various parts of the planet scientists have come up with a more accurate number which they believe to be around 6 quadrillion kilograms. Mind boggling to say the least but if you think that’s a big number don’t forget to check out our article on the number Googol.
hey that is not the weight of the planet earth for the weight of the earth is only 109.72560 grams because of the weight of the gravity up in space you guys are such retards !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6 quadrillion kg = 6 x 10^12 kg.
ACTUAL mass of the Earth = 6 x 10^24 kg.
You’re out by a factor of a quadrillion or so.
Whoops, typo: 6 quadrillion kg = 6 x 10^15 kg, sorry!
Weight or mass? I was under the impression that weight was mass*gravity and that it was measured in newtons.
Ok, I think there is a misconception here, one thing is the mass of the earth and another is its weight. Unfortunately in our daily lives we don’t use the appropriate units; mass in measured in Kg and weight in Newtons (if you use the MKS system). Weight is related to the gravitational attraction of the bodies in question, or more precisely to the gravitational field present in the region of space where the body being weighed is located. That is why things on the moon weigh just 1/6 of their weight on earth, the gravitational attraction has changed, not the mass, it has been kept constant. Mass is the quantification of a property of matter, namely, inertia.
The article should be entitled “What is the mass of the Earth?,” and yes, it is about 6 x 10^24 kg.
Just one more thing, there is no need to insult anybody arriana.
If you read the article it’s not disputing what the possible mass of the earth is, because as everyone is quoting it’s known.
The article is posting a hypothetical scenario i.e that of if you were to weigh each gram of rock, soil etc on the earth according to earths gravitational forces what is the total weight of all the solid mass on the earth.
In short most of you are trying to be smart asses by posting the mass when that’s not what the author of the article is even talking about, nor is it what they intended the article to be about. If it was just pin pointing the mass of the earth, well that would be a pretty boring article.
Then the author still got his units wrong. An answer to “how much does the earth weigh?” should be in Newtons.
Brandon, you’re either a complete moron or just totally uneducated. Newtons is a measure of force used for gravity calculations. The author referred to weight which is typically measured in Kg, Grams, Stones etc.
When’s the last time you used a “WEIGHING SCALE” which had the measurement in Newtons… What a moron lol
“Newtons is a measure of force used for gravity calculations.” Thats what weight IS. Its the measure of gravitational FORCE. Kilograms are a measure of mass. Mass and weight are often used interchangeably, but theyre actually very different.
As to the “weighing scale” issue. There are basically two different types of scales, foce scales and mass scales. Mass scales balance the object being weighed against an object of known mass in order to determine the mass of the unknown object. These can be used on anywhere there is constant gravitational acceleration (ie. an object weighed with one will display the same mass on earth and on the moon.) Force scales use a spring or other means to measure the force an object exerts against the scale due to gravity, measuring what we refer to as “weight.” These types of scales depend on what planet the measurement is taken (ie. an object weighed with one will display a different weight on earth than it will on the moon.) However, force scales often output measurements in Kilograms. They can do this because as long as you use the scale on earth, an object with 5 kilograms of mass will always weigh the same amount (about 50 Newtons) and thus the makers of the scale can easily calibrate the numbers of the scale to display how much mass an object placed on it would have. keep in mind that this does not make it a mass scale. Your bathroom scale might tell you that you weigh 70 kilograms, but if you used it on the moon it would give you a different number even though your mass did not change.
This bring us to the point of the article. If you measured the mass or each chunk of the earth and then summed them up, you would get the total mass of the earth as a result, which is the number people are quoting in the comments. If you took a scale around every section of the earth and measures the WEIGHT of each section relative to where it was in the earth, you would get a different number, a number measured in Newtons. And this number would not be able to be converted into kilograms, because the gravitational acceleration is not constant everywhere there is mass in the earth (for example, the gravitational acceleration at the middle of the earth would be close to zero, meaning the material at the core of the earth has almost no weight.
You could have learned most of this by reading the wikipedia article on weighing scales, but instead you chose to make it apparent how ignorant you are.
Brandon thanks for the very thorough explanation of weight/mass and as you’ve stated both terms in general usage are used interchangeably. And I agree the term mass is probably the better term to use.
Also just to clarify most sources do cite the mass being closer to 6×10^24 which for brownie points is not 6 quadrillion but spoken as ??
And guys, thanks for all the comments but let’s try to be a little more friendly. After all this a site for learning! And learning should always be fun
However saying that it’s certainly great to see everyone stepping in and trying to correct, enhance and add to the articles.
the earth is exactly 5.9 sextrillion metric tons.
yes its a real word.
this is such useful information for us to know and understand and is very cool too. this kind of information can really help our nation to better understanding of our universe!!! thanks for these kinds of websites that help us and our generations!!!!
all of you are acting like nerds.no offense.
and if im been mean im really sorry