Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

jmorge
Lv 6
jmorge asked in Science & MathematicsPhysics · 2 decades ago

not counting falling astroids or launched space craft, does the earth weigh any more today than on "day 1"?

5 Answers

Relevance
  • 2 decades ago
    Favorite Answer

    I'm assuming you mean not counting all objects falling from space (not just asteroids) and all objects being "launched" (molecules from the upper atmosphere, the moon etc).

    In that case the only thing coming to or leaving the earth is light. Since the earth is cooler today than when it formed, some of this original energy has escaped into space in the form of infrared radiation.

    On the other hand, light from the sun has come to earth and its energy has been stored in the chemicals bonds created during photosynthesis.

    Since the entire volume of the earth has cooled, and living things are only present on the surface, my guess it that the cooling effect wins. Thus the net flux of energy due to electromagnetic radiation has been outward, meaning that the earth has lost weight.

    Thats just a guess, you could probably ask a geologist and ecologist for some numerical estimates.

  • 2 decades ago

    Very good question. I was ready to jump and say yes because there are more people now, but people grow by eating food so it seems the weight just transfers hosts instead of adding or subtracting.

    If anything, I would say yes, as day 1 was pre-flood, at a time when the earth had a dense cloud cover. All that water came down, most of it stayed down, and only a portion of it is atmospheric now. (Say what you want, a majority of belief systems across the globe have a similar account of an ancient massive flood)

    I'll keep an eye on this one, hope someone has a great answer.

  • 2 decades ago

    First of all "weight" of the earth is ridiculous.

    Weight is a relative concept of gravitational pull.

    You must mean matter.

    In that case - there is the conservation of mass-energy. The energy retained by the earth (main source sun) is insignificant if you convert into mass equivalent (E = mc^2). So I would conclude that the mass of the earch is same.

    This is even if we count all the people. and falling astoroids are anyway insignificant.

  • 2 decades ago

    Frankly your question contains too many undefined terms to get any kind of consesus on an answer.

    How are you defining earth? Are you including the atmosphere? what about the oceans? (they aren't made of "earth" either) Including the people? and when is day 1? why aren't you counting space debris?

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • to your surprise scientists have found that earth has lost wieght with due course of time

    the wieght of earth measured in 2000 was 5.978 sextillion metric tons

    the present wieght of earth is 5.972 sextillion metric tons

    the measurement was taken by university of washington , they claim they have better appratus to measure the exact wieght of earth , the above figure is a close approximation

    why does earth loose wieght ?

    Scientists claim that more use of minerals and ores which in turn consitute the wait of earth are being used a lot, could be the reason why earth is loosing wieght

    People living on this planet dont constitute as earths mass

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.