How much does the Earth weigh?

 

Have you ever stepped on a scale to find out how much you weigh? Have you ever wondered about the weight of the heaviest item on Earth? What about the Earth itself?! Would it weigh a million pounds? A billion? A trillion?

While the exact number may be different depending on who you ask, most agree that that Earth weighs about 6 sextillion metric tons! What would this number look like written out? Start with a six, then add 21 zeros! Are you ready? Here it is: 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons! Is that more or less than you imagined?!

It’s important to remember that the weight of the Earth increases each year, as the Earth gains size from sources such as debris from meteors. This means the weight of the Earth will only continue to get bigger!

We just learned the Earth’s weight in metric tons, but keep in mind that Earth’s weight in pounds would be much bigger. After all, one metric ton equals 2,200 pounds! To find out the Earth’s weight in pounds, we must multiply its weight in metric tons (6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) by 2,200. Ready for the grand total?! The Earth weighs around… 13,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds!

Also keep in mind that an item has weight because of a force called gravity. The Earth’s gravitational pull is a powerful thing! In fact, this force pulls on you, giving you weight and keeping you on the Earth’s surface rather than drifting up to the sky! But if your weight is determined by the Earth’s pull, how can the Earth itself have a weight? This is why scientists may refer to that really big number you just learned as the Earth’s mass (the amount of matter/stuff inside of it) rather than its weight!