How much does the earth weigh?

Question

If you could put the earth on scales how much would it weigh and if everyone dieted at the same time would the earth weigh less?

Answer 1

5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons ! ! !

Answer 2

the question is vague because weight is a type of force and in our case on earth, when we weigh stuff it is basically the force that the earth is exerting on whatever we are weighing on the scales. If you want to know how much the earth weigh, we need to establish relative to what, the gravitational force of the sun or that of the moon? If we cannot establish a force acting on earth that will help us determine earth's weight, then we can only talk about the mass of the earth (given by other answerers) and not its weight. It's like saying, how much would an astronaut weigh if he were put in space (not in orbit though)? the simple answer is: he is WEIGHTLESS!

Answer 3

Being pedantic: the Earth weighs nothing, because it is not acting on a two way gravitation like we do to it.
Simply, there is nothing to weigh the Earth.
On the other hand, if we look at the other part to your question, if everyone dieted it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference because the food that they would have eaten would still be there anyway. Just because we're eating it, doesn't mean it ain't there.

And, if we decided not to grow as much food, the water that would have gone into growing it would have just gone somewhere else, the nutrients used elsewhere etc. So in truth it doesn't matter how much we eat on the Planet scale, it just matters to the people living on it.

Answer 4

Yes, it's a bit of a trick question, as the weight of the earth would be the force of the earth under gravity, so it would depend on the mass of other planet which the scales are standing on.

Your question is better asked as "What is the mass of the earth", as this is not a measurement of force, and it does not depend on gravity.

I think you may be able to calculate the mass of the earth by looking at it as a maths problem concerning "motion in a circle" with the earth on orbit around the sun.

The second part of your question is a simple no. If everyone left their food on their plate, and did not eat it (dieted), the earth and its contents would still weight the sane amount, but clearly the dieting people would progressively weigh less.

Answer 5

6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms and it's more mass than weight because weight is a force that requires a gravitational field to determine. You can take a bowling ball and weigh it on the Earth and on the moon. The weight on the moon will be one-sixth that on the Earth, but the amount of mass is the same in both places. To weigh the Earth, we would need to know in which object's gravitational field we want to calculate the weight. The mass of the Earth, on the other hand, is a constant.

Answer 6

The mass of the earth would be 6 (with 24 zeroes after it) kilograms OR 1.3 to the 25th power pounds.

It's better to ask for the mass since it will always be constant. The weight will change depending on how you measure it. Example your weight differs if you measure it on the Earth instead of the Moon whereas your mass is the same.

Answer 7

the earth weighs abot as much as a car. its gravitational pull determines how much we weigh so no if we all dieted it wouldn't make the earth less heavy because we are not counted in the equation it is very trick to understand the concept.

Answer 8

i asked my physics teacher this last year and he said you cannot weigh the earth and that i should invent a device that could !
i think it would weigh less if we all dieted

Answer 9

I think this is a question of mass and not weight, and though I do not have the answer, I bet someone does.


Wikipedia:
Mass: 5.9736×1024 kg

Answer 10

It doesnt weigh anything because everything in outer space is weightless..

Answer 11

interesting Q,but I dont think the weight of everybody in the world will have any affect on the weight of the world,because of gravity.