3 Answers
The earth rotates. It does not spin. It rotates at just over 1000 miles per hour.
What Is the Weight of the Earth?
Finding the weight of the Earth is a complex task for several reasons. One is the folly of calculating the weight of objects without gravity; another is that Earth's mass is continually growing. Meteors hit the surface of the Earth each day, increasing its mass at a rate of approximately 10 to the 8th power kg every 24 hours. Of course, as we'll see, this figure is statistically insignificant.
There is not an objective way to answer the question, "What is the weight of the Earth?" The question is not scientifically sound. When talking about celestial bodies, it is improper to ask about an object's weight due to gravitational pull. This depends entirely upon what system of gravity that object belongs to. It is more scientifically precise to ask about an object's mass, which is unchanging. This is something we can calculate. The Earth's mass is 5.9736í--1024 KG, or approximately 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms.
Expert Insight
Calculating the Earth's mass lies in its spherical shape. The concentration of a sphere's mass is in the center. As we learned from Sir Isaac Newton, the Earth's mass can be calculated just as you would discover any two spheres' gravitational attraction. It is through the formula Force = 6.67259x10-11m3/s2kg X M1 X M2/Distance of separation. The M1 and M2 represent the masses of the two objects. To solve for M1 (the mass of the Earth), you need only plug in a value for M2--a value you can easily figure out, like the mass of a ball--and then calculate the acceleration the Earth's gravity puts on that mass when dropped. When this figure is put into the equation, you come out with the answer of the Earth's mass, which is written above.
Features
The Earth is a complex amalgam of many materials. The core of the Earth is made of core and nickel primarily, all of which is mostly molten. After this is the mantle, which is made up of rock and minerals, including iron, oxygen, silicon and magnesium. Finally, there is the crust, which is again made up of much of the same materials that comprise the mantle, along with a considerable amount of water. This is all contained within an atmosphere of gases, the primary components of which are nitrogen and oxygen.
Considerations
To put Earth's mass into perspective, you have to compare it with other planets. Earth may be the only planet in the universe--that we know of--to sustain any form of life, but Jupiter is by far the king when it comes to pure mass. It is 318 times as massive as Earth, and more than twice as massive as all other planets in the solar system put together. Earth's closest cousin in terms of size is Venus, which is 4.86845 x 10 to the 24th power.
Identification
Now that you have an understanding as to why the measure of the Earth's "weight" is improper and unscientific, there's no harm in coming up with an answer. The calculation of the Earth's weight would have to depend on choosing a gravitational field to use as a starting point. Since it is what we know, we'll use Earth's own gravitational field. With this, scientists can measure the weight of the Earth by calculating the weight of all of the components of Earth (the mantle, the crust, etc.) and adding them together. By doing this, we come up with an approximate Earth weight of 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. If you want a quick way to say this, it's 6.6 sextillion tons.
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