What is the mass of the Earth and how do you measure it?

Answer 1

The mass of the planet Earth is 5.97 * 1024 kilograms (from Ask.com)

Mass From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Mass (disambiguation).
Mass is a property of a physical object that quantifies the amount of matter and energy it contains. Unlike weight, the mass of something stays the same regardless of location. In relativity, the quantity invariant mass, which is closest in content to the classical idea of mass, also does not vary between single observers in different reference frames. Mass is a central concept of classical mechanics and related subjects, and also several forms of mass appear in relativistic kinematics (see mass in special relativity).

Answer 2

I think others have given the correct value of 5.972 x 10^24 kg.

You measure the mass of a planet or star by analyzing the motion of the objects orbiting the object. In other words, you measure the strength of gravity for that object. For example, Earth's gravitational constant is 3.986 x 10^14 m^3/sec^2. The Sun's gravitational constant is 1.327 x 10^20 m^3/sec^2.

You then need to make one more measurement. You need to figure out the ratio between mass and gravity for ALL objects. You do this by experimentation and it's hard to get a precise result, although, thanks to modern technology, the Universal Gravitational Constant has been determined pretty precisely (not as precisely as the geocentric gravitational constant, the heliocentric gravitational constant, etc, but, still, pretty precisely). The Universal Gravitational Constant is 6.67 x 10^(-11) m^3 sec^2/kg. In other words, that's strength of gravity for a 1 kg object (all objects have gravity - even the girl sitting next to you in class is gravitationally attracted to you ... or is it that you're just gravitationally attracted to her? .... or better yet, you're both gravitationally attracted to each other! ... especially if she has a lot of mass!)

Once you've figured out an accurate number for the Universal Gravitational Constant, you just divide the Earth's gravitational constant by the Universal Gravitational Constant to find the mass of the Earth.

One question about sharala's response: From which planet did the mass of that newborn come from?

Answer 3

The mass of Earth is found to be about 5.98 × 1024 kg. Mass is a characteristic that is inherent, and it is independent of the object's environment and the method used to measure it. It is a scalar quantity, that is, a single value with and appropriate unit that has no direction.

The mass of the Earth may be determined using Newton's law of gravitation. It is given as the force (F), which is equal to the Gravitational constant multiplied by the mass of the planet and the mass of the object, divided by the square of the radius of the planet. We set this equal to the fundamental equation, force (F) equals mass (m) multiplied by acceleration (a). We know that the acceleration due to gravity is equal to 9.8 m/s2, the Gravitational constant (G) is 6.673 × 10-11 Nm2/kg2, the radius of the Earth is 6.37 × 106 m, and mass cancels out. When we rearrange the equation and plug all the numbers in, we find that the mass of the Earth is 5.96 × 1024 kg.

F = Gm1m2/r2 = ma

Gm/r2 = g

m = gr2/G

m = (9.8 m/s2)(6.37 × 106 m)2/(6.673 × 10-11 Nm2/kg2)

m = 5.96 × 1024 kg

The Earth gains mass each day, as a result of incoming debris from space. This occurs in the forms of "falling stars", or meteors, on a dark night. The actual amount of added material depends on each study, though it is estimated that 10 to the 8th power kilograms of in-falling matter accumulates every day. The seemingly large amount, however, is insignificant to the Earth's total mass. The Earth adds an estimated one quadrillionth of one percent to its weight each day.

Answer 4

Not very difficult.Take an object of mass m1(known). The gravitational force acting on the object is F=m1g(g=9.8m/s^2). Now if m2 is the (unknown) mass of the earth,then we can derive m2 form the equation m2=(F*R^2)/(G*m1). WHERE G=6.673*10^(-11) Nm^2/kg^2 , R=64*10^2 km. & m1& F is konown. FROM HERE U'LL GET THE MASS OF EARTH ALMOST 5.972*10^24 kg.

Answer 5

if you take a 1kg object an shove it on a spring scale you'll see that it has a weight of 9.81N. I.e. the force between earth and the object is that of 9.81m/(s^2). The force between any two massive obects is (G)(m1)(m2)/(r^2). G is the gravitational constant, m1 and m2 is the mass of each object, r is the distance between the two obects' center of gravity. You can find out G by emperical evidence such as observation of movement between massive bodies whose mass we do know. m1 is known to be 1kg m2 is what we need to find, r is the radius of the earth which can be found by walking along the equator of the earth and dividing the distance you walked by 2(pi) and you know the force between them is 9.81N so isolate the only variable that is not known and you got your answer.

Answer 6

mass of the earth cannot be measured coz
mass of the earth=mass of all things on earth(includes us)+actual mass of earth
every second a person is born os it keeps on incresing for every min,ha a ha ha ha

Answer 7

the earth weighs 5.9742×10^24 kg, which is 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg, or five septillion, nine hundred and seventy-four sextillion, two hundred quintillion kilograms.
Check out this the find out how... I guess it's got something to do with gravity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass

Answer 8

The earth weighs about exactly 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

Answer 9

I asked her to stand on my weighing machine but sadly it broke next time i'll try with a stronger one!

Answer 10

just calculate g = Gm/r

g is 9.8m/s
G= 6.636 * 10 rest to power -37
r == 6400 km