Our earth gains mass from space as we accumulate space?

Question

dust. Our seashores accumulates and loses mass with the tides. We all see the accumulation of dust on our own coffee tables, and if you go to Pompeii you see what volcanic dust has wrought. Archeological sites are buried behind accumulations of sands. How much has the earth grown over the past 3000 years?

Answer 1

I cringe to contradict a Ph.D. in astrophysics, but sober scientific data supports a figure of 30 to 60 tons per day for the current rate of accretion of meteoritic dust and debris on the Earth. This is still microscopic, of course, amounting to less than a millionth of its total weight in the 4.5 billion years since the Earth was formed.

Pseudo-scientific theories of Accreation, or of a young earth, claim their justification with wildly exaggerated estimates of the rate at which the Earth gains mass in this way. 30 to 60 tons a day is quite a small enough rate to completely rebut their so-called arguments.

Answer 2

The earth weighs approximately 52,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons, and gains anywhere from about 1/4 ton to one ton of material from meteoroid material each year. So yes, it does--it's not a perfectly closed system--but the amount is negligible.

There was one really goofy answer about "accretion" that was completely wrong.

The big number above is stated 5.2x10^19, or "52 quintillion."

Answer 3

it hasn't grown at all....
tectonic plates shift, tides change, sands sift...but it's all the same matter. Dust is lifted in one area and transported by winds to another etc.
the minimal amount of dust / meteors / debris that falls from actual outer space is very very small in comparison and wouldn't affect the overall mass of the earth.

acretion (below) is a theory

Answer 4

It's called Accreation (creation by accretion) is a byproduct of 35 years of research and study that proved Earth's diameter has expanded rapidly in the past ~200 Ma. In that relatively short period of geologic time all of today's oceans, and most of the water that now fills them, have been created by melting and expansion of Earth's core. (link) http://www.expanding-earth.org

The Earth is increasing in size and mass by daily accretion of extraterrestrial meteorites and meteor dust--additional weight that is gravitationally focused on the planet's exact center, thereby generating compressive heat and thermal expansion of the core.

Core expansion is the mechanism causing the Earth to expand, and the rate of expansion accelerates over time as the planet increases in mass by daily bombardment of THOUSANDS OF TONS of meteorites and meteor dust that also adds a thin layer of dust on the surface--with a 75% chance of falling on some body of water. This is the primary source for the oceans' deep sediment layers that have accumulated over the past ~200 Ma as new ocean seafloors have been generated by volcanic magma extruded via the midocean ridges that now encircle the Earth

Answer 5

Hey, all you geologists out there. How much dust falls from space in a year. It's gotta be in a textbook somewhere.

Answer 6

The earth is a closed system, nothing gained, nothing lost.

Answer 7

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4 small squares and the sum of all is the 5th.