Does Earth Gain or Lose Mass?

Have you ever wondered if our dear planet Earth is gaining or losing mass? With all the things that had happened on Earth, which of them caused Earth to gain and lose mass? What are the factors to consider? Are there any circumstances where Earth neglected the gain-lose effect? And lastly, if Earth is truly gaining and losing mass at the same time, do we have to worry about it?

_Source

---

So many questions and probably you have more in your mind right now. And believe me, I know that bugging feeling. Since one of my colleague asked me that question, I can’t help but look for satisfying answers to quench my curious mind. I also did a few research so just wait and relax, we’ll clear that off. Are you now ready?

---

In high school we were taught about atomic mass, energy-mass relationship and we were generally thinking of Earth having constant mass. Yeah that could be true, on a basic level. But technically, Earth’s mass does change very slightly. So is it really increasing or decreasing?

---

According to Dr. Chris Smith, a medical microbiologist and broadcaster who tries to improve the public understanding of science, there are factors that cause Earth to gain and lose mass over time. Dr. Smith together with Dave Ansel, a Cambridge University physicist, calculated how much Earth’s mass has gained and lost per year. Roughly around 40, 000 tons of space dust or the remnants of the formation of the solar system becomes part of our planet while 50, 000 tons of mass Earth loses per year. Is it because of tremendous fire reports or is it due to the number of rockets being launched? hehehe

---

ADDING WEIGHT

_Source

I’m pretty sure by now, you’re really eager to know what are the things taken in to consideration in the computation of 40, 000 tons gained by Earth per year. I have listed down below the great contributors why Earth ended up gaining mass.

• Basically, most of the gained mass is an accumulation of the vestiges of the solar system. It could be the asteroids that broke up or things that never formed in to a planet.

Dr. Smith said, “The Earth is acting like a giant vacuum cleaner powered by gravity in space, pulling in particles of dust.”

• Another much less significant reason is global warming. Yes you read it right – Global warming. If you can still remember your homework about energy-mass relationship in thermodynamics, then this is understandable. According to NASA, the rising of temperature is a possible source of mass gained by Earth. But this has only a tinie-tiny effect. It only accumulates up to 160 tons, according to Dr. Smith and MR. Ansel’s estimation.

---

NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT

_Source

• You may wonder about the fossils being burned or the number of fire reports every year to consider losing Earth’s mass. But actually it has no effect. This is well explained in Law of Physics where we can neither create or destroy mass. We only change its form into gas and mind you gas’ properties include atomic mass. So if you burn something, you are not actually decreasing its mass, you only converted it to gaseous state.

• Rockets and satellites being launched that end up in orbit will eventually be listed under Earth’s mass. You are not taking away mass, you only transferred it in space. Remember, gravity pulls us towards Earth’s core so definitely, this will not count as escaped mass. As per Dr. Smith, “They will eventually fall towards Earth’s gravity well.”

• Building structures on Earth also doesn’t add any mass since they are using baryonic (Merriam Dictionary: any of a group of subatomic particles such as nucleons that are subject to the strong force) matter that’s already present on the planet. You are just changing its shape and form but the mass is still there.

• Also, according to Dr. Smith, population and plant growth does not affect the mass of Earth as these are actually made up of existing matter on the planet. But would you agree? Or maybe he just missed something.

Take a plant growth as an example. A seed falls to the ground and grows into a tree, that seed that weighed only a fraction of an ounce can weight many tons by the end of its life cycle. Is this really negligible? Well, yes. Since Earth, also loses mass by escaped hydrogen and plants are one of the considered reservoirs of hydrogen therefore despite of the many seeds that have grown into a fully matured tree, every year it loses hydrogen making this process negligible. Same thing with population. Humans hold up to an average of 65% of water and water has hydrogen, right? The number of deaths and new life recorded may have significant differences but when doing all the calculations, it still ended up negligible.

---

LOSING MASS

_Source

Earth does loses mass through a couple of processes. I have listed down below the points included in Dr. Smith and Mr. Ansels’ computation.

• Radioactive decay. Material in Earth’s crust undergoes radioactive decay, and therefore Earth loses energy as it has been used for the planet’s lifespan. But that only accounts up to 16 tons per year. That’s so tiny but it’ll definitely have a significant effect in trillions of years to come.

• The escaped hydrogen and helium are considered to have the biggest contributions in the mass loss of Earth which is around 95, 000 tons of mass and 1, 600 tones respectively. And that’s a net of 50, 000 tons losing mass per year.
  With that being said, the net loss of Earth’s mass is only 0.000000000000001% yearly, so it doesn’t account for much when compared to the total mass of Earth. Mass of Earth is 5, 972, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 tons.

---

SHOULD WE BE WORRIED?

0.000000000000001% may seem a very small amount but let’s look into trillion of years from now. Is the world in danger of running out of hydrogen? Dr. Smith himself isn’t even worried.

According to Dr. Smith, “It would take trillions of years to empty the earth’s oceans and since the planet is only about 5 billion years old, probably a hell of a lot longer than we have been here already.”

Another point to take, if we are losing and the sun is losing shouldn’t the net effect be negligible? Or who knows maybe chicken little was right, “The sky is falling!”

---

Thank you for reading my blog till the end. It means a lot to me. Commenting your views and opinions down below will be much more appreciated! Come on, let's exchange thoughts!

---

References:
https://briankoberlein.com/2015/12/15/is-earth-gaining-mass-or-losing-mass/
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/297622/is-the-earth-gaining-or-losing-mass-over-time
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-earth-gaining-mass-or-losing-mass

Lovelots,
@nikkabomb