With all the space launches and stuff we send into orbit, does the earth get lighter every time?

Question

Whenever we send things into space, very little of that stuff comes back, would the gradual removal of weight start affecting earths orbit over time, and what would happen?

Answer 1

Technically it would, but you also have to account for the fact that millions of lbs of space dust enter our atmosphere each year (seen as shooting stars and meteorites).

"Space dust is dust in space that comes from the formation or destruction of planets, stars, comets or other interstellar objects. About 100 tons of space dust fall on the Earth every day. Although difficult to observe, dust in orbit near the Earth reflects sunlight.

Types
There are three main types of space dust:

Cometary dust: this dust is released by comets while they travel in the cosmos.
Asteroidal dust: this dust is the result of the destruction of asteroids while they disintegrate while entering the atmosphere.
Everything else: Dust that was created a long time ago when the planets were forming or even the formation of our sun. "

Answer 2

There seems to be some confusion between mass and weight here. An object such as the space shuttle may not have any "weight" while it is orbiting the earth, but it still has "mass" and its mass is still part of the earth's mass - as long as it stays within the earth's gravitational field which is 9.8 m/sec on the earth's surface.

Even the lunar excursion modules from the 1960's and 1970's and left behind on the moon could be argued to contribute to the earth's mass, as the moon is rotating around the earth by gravitational pull. However, various probes to Venus, Mars, etc do indeed reduce the earth's mass, but the amount is infinitely small as the earth has a mass of about 6 x 10E24 (that's a 6 with 24 zeroes after it, 6 trillion trillion) kg.

Its quite complicated, but that's a simplified layman's (laywoman's?) explanation.

Answer 3

Does it reduce mass? Yes, obviously.

The Earth also loses some mass constantly due to some of our atmosphere being swept away into space. Radioactive decay on Earth can also liberate some mass (and generates heat).

The Earth also gains mass when we encounter meteors, or even from particles that impact the Earth from the solar wind and cosmic rays.

None of these mass exchanges are enough to modify the Earth's orbit in any noticeable way.

The Sun itself is constantly converting some of its mass into energy, which means that every year it attracts the earth somewhat less. The effect is very tiny, but the result is that the Earth's orbit around the Sun gets slightly bigger all the time. This orbital change is more significant than anything due to mass exchanges on the Earth itself--and even in the fullness of time, the Sun's change of mass won't have a very significant impact on the Earth's orbit (although other changes in the Sun will ultimately have a big impact).

Answer 4

Actually, a lot of the stuff we send into space comes back, eventually. Sure, some stuff will never return [in the foreseeable future] (Voyager for one {all though there was a star trek movie about that}), but even all of those satellites we send up will eventually live out their usefulness and be allowed to plummet back to earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Just because something burns up in the atmosphere does not mean that it is gone, it just means that it mass is going to be distribute over a much larger area rather than clumped up on a big ball of metal...its mass is still around.

Not to mention, the Earth is constantly being bombarded by tiny pieces of "space dust"....a grain of sand here and there from a passing meteor or comet, and every once in a while larger meteorites, .....

The % change in the Earth's mass from day to day is absolutely not significant on any type of ordinary scale when considering the Earth's mass is on the order of 5.9742 E24kilograms!
1 E24 means a 1 with 24 zeros after it,
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
So by sending up a (for illustrative purposes) 6 million metric ton satellite, the Earth's mass is only changed by about .000000000000000001% and that would have to be one BIG satellite.

Answer 5

Ofcourse it affects the planet and it indeed becomes lighter, but by just 200 or 300 kilograms. Not enough to make a difference (considering the Earth weights 5.9742×10^24 kilograms)

Answer 6

yes, but literally TONS of dust (mostly in the form of micrometeorites) rains down on the earth every day, so we will just keep on getting heavier no matter how much we toss up into space :) Neither of those things affects our orbit any significant amount, it would take millions of tons of material to do that either coming or going...

Answer 7

With all the cosmic dust entering our atmosphere I doubt we are actually losing any mass, let alone a noticable amount.

And to the guy who thinks creating people is making the world heavier....where do you think these people come from? They come from atoms that already existed on Earth, so nothing is being added (also known as conservation of mass).

Answer 8

I read in an article that earth receives more meteor weight than the satellites that we are launching. Moon gets hit my lot of meteors too.

We may have to send more satellites.

Answer 9

Mmm, despite the fact that the earth is hit by hundreds of meteorites, gaining mass every hour of every day, every day of every year for the last millions of years I can see why you would be worried.

Answer 10

yes but I'm going to set up a space refuse collection service and bring it all back! then charge the culprits millions of dollar for the service Cu's them are glorified fly tippers!