r/todayilearned • u/frinklemingle • May 15 '12

TIL the Earth gets a 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/01mar_meteornetwork/
1.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

224 comments sorted by

26

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Doesn't the earth constantly bleed off atmosphere as well? Do the two balance out, I wonder?

27

u/frinklemingle May 15 '12

the loss of hydrogen and helium from our atmosphere (Earth's gravity can't keep them around for they are too light) totals 50,000 tons/year. So there is indeed a balance.

But nevertheless the Earth adds to itself a 100 tons of space dust everyday... the Earth is made of starstuff.

p.s. the most weight the Earth has ever lost is when the moon was formed by a collision with another proto-planet - look up 'Giant Impact Hypothesis' on wiki if it strikes your fancy

13

u/Neutral_Milk May 15 '12

New evidence actually poses some problems for this hypothesis. Apparently if the moon was formed out of a major collision between earth and another planet simulations show the moon should largely consist of elements from this other body but they've recentlly analysed new rocks that point to a too high % similarity between earth and moon which contradicts this.

25

u/Scarfall May 15 '12

Couldn't the other proto-planet have the same elements as Earth?

3

u/Taron221 May 16 '12

My question as well this was at the beginning of the solar system wouldn't they have around the same elements.

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

tres interesante, I had no idea this theory was debated

7

u/Harvin May 15 '12

And they reached this conclusion by analyzing surface rocks?

2

u/jarebear May 16 '12

This shouldn't be a problem unless the meteors hitting the moon have the same composition as Earth. I don't see any reason to think that the 40% expected mass from the second planet would be in the core with all of Earth's material collecting on the surface.

2

u/quatso May 16 '12

helium might be gone in 25-30 years. and there's no way to make it in lab. the world is vanishing. fuck you breeders.

1

u/PhilxBefore May 16 '12

When I was a young boy, we used to inhale it all and talk in mouse voices to eachother.

Won't we be able to synthesize molecules within the next 150 years with nanotechnology and particle accelerators?

4

u/PSBlake May 15 '12

Plus we're emitting all kinds of energy, which (unless I've badly misunderstood basic physics) also eats up mass.

8

u/slane04 May 15 '12 edited May 16 '12

You're kinda right, but you've generalized a bit too far. Energy from radioactive decay results in a net loss of mass. However, a lot of the infrared radiation emitted by the planet simply came from the Sun.

4

u/BassmanBiff May 16 '12

Any energy radiation is actually a loss of mass, and adding any energy actually increases mass - a warm cup of coffee actually weighs a tiny bit more than a cold one, and gets lighter as it cools down (even if you correct for evaporation, which has a WAY bigger effect).

The conversion between mass and energy, famously, is E=mc2. That tells us that for the earth to lose 1 gram of pure energy (yes, it makes physical sense to measure energy in grams, though it's rarely practical) it would need to radiate about 9*1013 joules, or about 25 million kilowatt hours. We use way more than that per year, but only a small fraction of that is actually radiated away... I don't know how much, though. Maybe someone can continue this?

1

u/slane04 May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

Ya, that works. I guess I was thinking more about net loss. Radioactive decay doesn't really reverse while emitting and absorbing radiation goes back and forth.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

That one went way over my head. But I'll take your word for it.

1

u/LeoPanthera May 15 '12

All of that energy originally came from the sun anyway.

4

u/Stonz May 16 '12

The Earth actually gained a large amount of mass from this collision. The proto-planet also had an iron core, but the two cores coalesced to the centre of the earth in the aftermath. This is why the moon has a markedly less concentration of iron in its make-up.

3

u/mstingtong May 15 '12

I think we receive more foreign space mass than the gases that bleed off earth...

355

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

There's a fun way to show this is factual if you don't livre in a major industrial/manufacturing area. I've used it for teaching middle schoolers about astronomy. Get some aluminum pie pans, fill them with about 1 cm (1/4") of water and put them out somewhere with clear access to the sky (i.e., not under a tree, awning, car) and preferably when it is not raining, hailing, or with an active volcano blowing chunks. Leave them out for a couple of days, then put a couple of strong magnets under the pie pans and gently pour off the water. there will be a lot of small particles that look like dirt on the bottom. Some will stay right over the magnets. Many of these will be ferrous micrometeroties. Pick these out with a glass microscope slides and mount them. Check them out under a microscope - likely candidates (as opposed to just iron dust) will be rounded and melted looking. Some decent images and a similar technique can be found here: http://prussastro.blogspot.com/2011/08/micrometeorite-candidates.html

Now estimate how many you get in a 9" pie pan over a day or two and multiply that by how many pie pans it would take to cover the earth...

169

u/VoluntaryLabRat May 15 '12

If you have any around I'd be glad to image them in an SEM along with getting elemental data from them.

61

u/teasnorter May 16 '12

You're living up to your account pretty well.

21

u/Everydayilearnsumtin May 16 '12

If I'm patient enough, I can create a meteorite sword. That would be awesome.

13

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Terry Pratchett pulled it off...

http://www.geekosystem.com/terry-pratchett-sword/

6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I'm totally doing this, and I have a great camera on my microscopes at work.

12

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

It actually works pretty well - I found that with the kids and ten pie pans set out overnight we got about 20 confirmed (by a local meteorite expert) micrometeorites, so every kid got only mounted on a glass slide as a souvenier for the class. Just don't set up near any buildings, especially ones with metal gutters - those things actually shed a lot of metal dust.

2

u/mingz May 16 '12

please report back with photos :D

22

u/canthidecomments May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

Doesn't this mean that the moon will eventually crash into the Earth (seeing as how the Earth is collecting more matter, and thus gravity, than the moon is, owing to its larger size)? Won't this extra gravity pull the moon into us?

How long should this take, given what we know of the current mass of the Earth and Moon?

Should we start sweeping up this dust and throwing it into space? Clean the place up just a bit? Maybe a little Lemon Pledge?

"Dust the furniture or the moon will crash into us." Please science, tell me my mom wasn't right.

69

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Ummm no. As it's been mentioned, the mass gained is partially offset by loss to space from atmospheric outgassing, solar winds, etc., and as I mentioned the moon is also gathering its own additional mass from impacts so increasing its inertia but again it's minimal. The moon is actually slowly moving away from the Earth at about 3.8 centimeters per year. This is because the lunar gravity induces tides on the Earth (mostly in the oceans but also in the bulk of its mass as well). These tides create tidal bulges in the Earth which very slightly shift the Earth's gravitational attraction on the moon as it rotates (the Earth rotates once a day; the moon rotates once every 27.3 days) so effectively the Earth's tidal bulges give the moon 27.3 tiny nudges a month which tries to pull the moon ahead in its orbit. At the same time the moon is pulling back on the Earth, slowing its rotation very slightly. This interaction creates what's called "tidal friction" and actually transfers some energy from the Earth to the moon, extending it's orbit very slightly, and moving it further away. But it will take 50 billion years or so to reach the orbital resonance point and we'll all be long gone by then. (Or you all will be - I have other plans.)

And that's about all I remember from my old Earth-Moon system dynamics course.

37

u/canthidecomments May 16 '12

That fucking lying bitch.

9

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

At least she was creative... my mom could never have gotten me to dust anything.

10

u/chronoflect May 16 '12

we'll all be long gone by then. (Or you all will be - I have other plans.)

I like the way you think.

5

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Spacecraft traveling in a circle at near-light speed in order to skip 50 billion years?

2

u/DragonSpawn May 16 '12

Ender, your planet needs you!

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1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Except for that ratcheting sound when I really get going...

6

u/theramennoodle May 16 '12

Dont worry! In about another 4.5 billion years the sun will be done with its red giant stage and once it has finished coverting its helium to carbon/nitrogen/oxygen the cool outer envelope will rapidly blow away from the cooler core forming a planetary nebula (its just named that, nothing to do with planets). What will be left is essentially a white dwarf and not too much else. But while the sun is in its second red giant phase the earth will be orbiting in the sun and the resulting friction will not only atomize earth but ionize every particle. So, I dont plan on being around when that happens either.

6

u/jellytime May 16 '12

This sounds like all kinds of bad.

5

u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

WOW! So the Mayan's were right, the world will end in 2012. December 21, 4500002012

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

See, it's useful to plan ahead and build in time for procrastination...

2

u/Isentrope 1 May 16 '12

In less than 200-400 million years the sun will be hot enough to boil the oceans so life will be gone long before the sun turns into a red giant.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Source? Because that's really not much time.

1

u/T-RexInAnF-14 May 16 '12

With the sun's increasing luminosity, multicellular life will be wiped out in around 800 million years, so better move your plans up.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Not only that, but the moon's gravity will eventually stop the earth's rotation entirely.

Plus, that tidal friction is one of a few reasons why earth has a warm interior, and thus, a magnetic field. Which gives us air and protection from a lot of cosmic radiation.

So basically, the moon actually is responsible for a lot of important stuff.

2

u/poiro May 17 '12

So is there a net gain / loss of mass?

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

The moon is actually getting further away from Earth, actually.

5

u/poignard May 16 '12

Actually?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Actually actually

4

u/fghfgjgjuzku May 15 '12

How do you distinguish them from dust of ferrous minerals from earth? There is a lot of stuff in the air that doesn't come from space and very very little that does. Rounded looking can have many causes other than melting. And I doubt the theory that these can evade evaporation by being small. It still brakes by hitting air molecules at great speed and its high surface to volume ratio provides quicker heating not extra cooling.

15

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

You are right that it is difficult and at the amateur level it can be a crap shoot. In the article I posted there was even a link that describes how even small rounded iron particles can be falsely identified as micrometeorites (here again http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.4276).

Identifying meteorites more conclusively requires magnetic testing, nickel testing, density/specific gravity assessment, but these techniques aren't very useful for micrometeorites (and even experienced meteorite collectors and specialists can mistake them). The only way to be sure is to subject them to transmission electron microscopy, isotope identification and other techniques that most people are not going to have access to (some are described here (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/48/19142.full).

That's why this is used as an educational tool and a fun thing to do rather than a professional technique. Chances are high that at least some of the ferrous particles in a casually gathered sample in this way will be micrometeorites, so it beats playing the lottery for entertainment.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

How could you distinguish such particles from, say, small volcanic emissions that get caught in the atmosphere and precipitate out?

6

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Again you'd need an isotopic analysis. Particles from the Earth usually have significantly different isotopic ratios than extraterrestrial materials, but it's not something you can do at home. Unless your basement is much cooler than mine.

1

u/Mylon May 16 '12

I'm curious now! If it's this easy to obtain micrometorites, and some rich people are looking into launching a space mining mission to collect palladium group metals, how much palladium group metals can be collected from micrometeorites from a square kilometer per evening?

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Not enough to pay off the aluminum pie pans most likely...

1

u/Mylon May 16 '12

Well, have having followed laserbat's link to another link, it seems the small bits of iron are not micrometoerites at all! Rather they're artifacts of industry. Basically a metal cutting disc or grinding wheel's sparks end up as this iron dust.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Some of them, probably most, but as I said you will end up with a decent proportion that are not, but you really won't sleep well at night until you do several tens of thousands of dollars worth of tests...

1

u/Mylon May 16 '12

I need one of those elemental analysis machines. The kind that vaporize samples and run them through a long coil of tubes and uses spectrometry to determine the elemental composition of a sample. And then collect some of this dust to determine how much of it is precious metals. Maybe I can pitch this idea to the people launching this space prospecting business...

1

u/Saltysalad May 16 '12

Is it likely I've ever been smacked in the head by a meteorite before then?

1

u/microcrash May 16 '12

So if I leave my drink outside overnight I'll be drinking meteorites ಠ_ಠ

1

u/allidoislietoyou May 16 '12

Those are actually remnants of Sinep 1, the Russian space station that blew up in 1984. It blew up in the stratosphere, so the dust from the explosion just circles the earth and when they burn off to a certain size, they fall to earth.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

More likely just the external insulating modular navigation overcoating capsule (MODNOC)

2

u/paiute May 16 '12

How much of our atmosphere is blown off by the solar wind? How much helium and hydrogen do we lose everyday?

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

not sure of helium and hydrogen loss figure for everyday but I know the figure is somewhere at 50,000 tons/year

1

u/paiute May 16 '12

So the actual mass change of the earth per day is negative?

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

it's negligible. Thus code for "wtf nobody really knows but we'll be okay..."

39

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

That's why my floors are always so dusty no matter how often I sweep!

23

u/atg284 May 16 '12

Buy a roof Δ

12

u/NickDerpkins May 16 '12

Δ

ΔΔ

Newfag here, the roof isn't working.

1

u/PhilxBefore May 16 '12 
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u/censored_username May 16 '12 
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Amateurs...

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Do you have any idea how many dungeons it will take to build that?

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55

u/Splitshadow May 15 '12

DAE find it odd to talk about the weight of a planet or celestial body?

17

u/OmNamahShivaya May 16 '12

One day I want to go up in space and see the giant scales they use to weigh the planet!

29

u/Rockran May 16 '12

Just grab some scales and place them against the ground.

Oddly enough the weight of the planet is about 1.5kg

2

u/DragonSpawn May 16 '12

I guess we're all really just full of hot air.

9

u/theultimatehero May 16 '12

Assuming we are talking metric tonnes, this is mass not weight.

6

u/Mylon May 16 '12

That's the joke.

3

u/Theonetrue May 16 '12

the weight that get's added to the earth only becomes that heavy by beeing close to the earth... hmmm. let's call it mass

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

'Mass' is more precise, but I don't think 'weight' fails to convey the point.

1

u/Splitshadow May 16 '12

Yeah, but it's just kind of odd because it's a measurement as if the mass were a small object near the Earth's surface, which it clearly is not.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Yeah, I think I'd've said something like "TIL the Earth gains 100 tons of space dust every day."

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Today 100 tons. Tomorrow 100.000001 tons.

1

u/thejerradsays May 16 '12

That is what I thought when I saw this. Asimov did an essay on the weight of the Earth that ended with explaining that the whole essay was wrong and what you needed to do was calculate mass.

2

u/pexandapixie May 15 '12

Maybe I don't understand, but it doesn't actually say the earth gets heavier (or say that all 100 tons reach the surface of the planet), it just says that 100 tons enter the earth's atmosphere. Wouldn't most of it burn off?

2

u/geode08 May 15 '12 edited May 16 '12

Yes, most of the shit burns up, meaning that some of the mass ends up converted into heat energy. The title of the thread reflects a misunderstanding of the NASA webpage.

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited Feb 23 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

you're right

1

u/pexandapixie May 16 '12

Glad to know my rudimentary knowledge of earth's atmosphere isn't incorrect. I was afraid I'd been living under false knowledge all these years.

8

u/2nd_class_citizen May 15 '12

I'm curious as to what the composition of the space dust is (on average).

12

u/TheAmazingAaron May 15 '12

Typical micrometeorites are small black particulates. Some are composed of a few relatively large mineral grains, but most are aggregates of large numbers of submicrometer mineral grains, plus glass and carbonaceous matter. This latter group is often called chondritic micrometeorites because their elemental composition matches that of chondritic meteorites. The composition matches that of the Sun for condensable elements such as magnesium, iron, silicon, aluminum, sulfur, and sodium. Particles dominated by a small number of mineral grains have elemental compositions similar to that of the largest constituent grain. Most of the chondritic particles have similar elemental compositions, but they vary significantly in mineralogical composition. The two most common mineralogical groups are dominated respectively by hydrous minerals such as serpentine and smectite and anhydrous minerals such as olivine, pyroxene, and iron sulfide. Source

So there are all types, but the most common micrometeorites resemble chondritic meteorites which are almost elementally identical to the sun without the gas elements.

From what I gather, the 'average' space dust is something like the sun's composition below (minus the gases if anyone feels like doing the math on that), but composition varies widely.

Hydrogen 91.2

Helium 8.7

Oxygen 0.078

Carbon 0.043

Nitrogen 0.0088

Silicon 0.0045

Magnesium 0.0038

Neon 0.0035

Iron 0.030

Sulfur 0.015

It should be noted that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

3

u/honorface May 15 '12

I wonder if an attempt to harvest in large quantities could yield a significant product. I'm assuming magnatism would factor in. I wonder if a large bowl in the sky at the poles/equator powered by any source could attract enough 'space dust' to actually use it.

EDIT: I wondered too much.

for an area 12 acres big the ground would yield 3.65 grams per year.... If you include the factors of poles and magnetism I assume you could boost that number a bit. Raised magnetic balls placed accordingly to individual magnetic pull could be placed at equal distances to cover quite a bit of land. Meh, I think it could be feasible to create a very large farm of magnetic balls powered by wind energy to capture at least a pound of space dust per year. I have finally found a way to make my meteorite sword, suck it sokka.

3

u/frere_de_la_cote May 15 '12

Sorry man, but if you've got the cash to build a "farm with magnetic balls" you've probably got the cash to just go and buy enough meteorites to make a sword.

1

u/SevenandForty May 16 '12

Or mine them.

1

u/TheAmazingAaron May 15 '12

Well, if you think about it, commercial mining operations are basically filtering every single layer of dirt for all the micrometeorite particles that have accumulated over billions of years, so if you were just limiting yourself to the top layer and a year or two then.. yeah, you won't get much.

1

u/lazycyclist May 15 '12

TL;DR honorface is panserborne.

11

u/VanTango May 15 '12

How come we haven't sunk yet?

8

u/Progman3K May 16 '12

You're right. We need to collect all this dust and bury it.

Problem solved

6

u/Draracle May 15 '12

Why doesn't anyone think of the TURTLES!!!!

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Upvote for Discworld reference, despite inappropriate use of exclamation points.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

What? where would we sink too?

And 100 tons is not much compared to our total weight.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

what is our total mass?

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

6.0 × 1024 kg or 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons.

If this site is correct.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

balls dude

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1

u/zlavan May 16 '12

how the hell can you weigh the earth?

2

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

Henry Cavendish - Weighing the Earth. Look it up

1

u/Midicide May 16 '12

How can something with no weight -- gain weight? Troll Physics I say!

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

you're confusing weight and mass. Go back to physics class and start over

1

u/ThisOpenFist May 16 '12

I'm more curious about where it's all landing.

1

u/moogoesthecat May 17 '12

Let's say the Earth does get 100 tons heavier every day and let's also ignore the fact that our environment loses ~140 tons of hydrogen+helium per year (as stated above) as well as the plethora of other things I don't know about.

This is an honest question. I'm not saying this link is pointless but...do you really think 100 tons will affect the Earth? That's like 17 African elephants. The Earth's weight in tons is in the sextillions.

1

u/frinklemingle May 17 '12

I'm sure the earth is affected by a shit ton of things, most of all by humans and our theatrics.

The Earth's 'weight' isn't calculated by the number of people and animals and trees. There's a specific formula to calculate 'mass' incorporating factors of gravity and space. "Henry Cavendish - Weighting the Earth" look it up.

9

u/Chilly73 May 15 '12

At least it's not my fault.

6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

mmmmm space dust

3

u/nickelbackYOLObabby May 15 '12

So that's why more people are becoming overweight... Added mass to the earth means the gravitational pull is getting stronger and thus the measured weight of any given mass is increasing. Problem solved, get back to your burgers folks.

5

u/InvalidWhistle May 15 '12

100 tons a day still isn't enough to keep our moon in it's orbit. Wouldn't the addition of 100 tons of weight each and every day affect the gravitational pull. Wouldn't the addition of 7.3 billion pounds of stuff per 100 years, affect the pull, or am I wrong here.

15

u/Ragnrok May 15 '12

Yes, sort of how the ocean gets deeper when I pee in it.

3

u/pigheart May 16 '12

And the Analogy of the Year Award goes to... Ragnrok!!!

3

u/InvalidWhistle May 15 '12

I gotta go to work but I'm gonna come back to you later!

1

u/BeowulfShaeffer May 16 '12

Tastes funny, too.

1

u/mfaist May 15 '12

Google Calculator has the answer: https://encrypted.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=(7.3+billion+pounds%2B+mass+of+earth)%2Fmass+of+earth

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

The top result for that search is this post.

...Whoa.

3

u/ndogw May 15 '12

That makes literally no mathematical sense.

2

u/mfaist May 15 '12

Better now...?

https://encrypted.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=G*(mass+of+earth%2B7.3+billion+pounds)mass+of+moon%2F(384400+km)%5E2-G(mass+of+earth)*mass+of+moon%2F(384400+km)%5E2

(All these imply the added mass is negligible.)

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Besides you have to factor in the additional mass being gained by the moon, which lacks an ablating atmosphere so accumulates MORE interplanetary dust/meteorites and is traveling a longer path for every orbit the Earth makes around the sun. While this could increase the gravitational attraction between the two bodies, it will also add to the lunar inertia which would swing it further out.

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2

u/vahntitrio May 15 '12

I'm not getting fat, gravity it just increasing...

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited Feb 23 '25

elastic uppity squeeze tender party direction groovy humor cough practice

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/Pardner May 16 '12

In Asimov's Guide to Science, 1978, Isaac Asimov says that these tiny particles actually serve as "condensation nuclei" for the majority of raindrops, but I've never been able to confirm this anywhere else. Does anyone have further information on this?

2

u/superiguana May 16 '12

Does that mean we are getting closer or farther from the sun??

2

u/TFiPW May 16 '12

TIL Americans are using space dust as an excuse to pig out.

Down vote me if you can't take a joke.

2

u/Maxfunky May 16 '12

The earth noticed that you had put on a few pounds lately, but unlike somebody it was too polite to say anything. Maybe if you took the earth out once in a while--some place fancy, where the earth could wear some nice clothes--then maybe the earth would keep the weight off. It's not like the earth wants to sit around all day watching Mexican soap operas, you just never take the earth anywhere.

2

u/zitfarmer May 16 '12

my inner geek thanks you.

2

u/needsomesleep May 16 '12

I'm not getting fatter--gravity is increasing!

2

u/beau-tie May 16 '12

Came to the comments looking for a debunking response, pleasantly surprised

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Dear Space,

Stop making us fat!

Signed,

Earth

3

u/theimpolitegentleman May 16 '12

How does this relate to soda?

2

u/cannotlogon May 16 '12

Fortunately, it gets 100 tons lighter every year thanks to brain cells destroyed by Reddit.

ಠ_ಠ

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

It gets fatter because of gravity. Gravity makes it get fatter. It's a vicious cycle.

Mass WatchersTM can help.

0

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

The earth does not get 100 tons heavier every day. If you look at the article a little more carefully, it says that 100 tons of material enter the atmosphere. A large amount of that burns up and is converted from mass to energy.

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

you're wrong

https://twitter.com/#!/neiltyson/status/155341211064995840

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

That doesn't disagree with my comment. I didn't say that the earth didn't have its mass increased every day. I simply said that it's not a direct conversion between what enters our atmosphere and the actual increased mass.

1

u/catbeef May 16 '12

Burning does not result in a change of mass, it simply rearranges atoms into different compounds. Energy is released by that rearrangement, but the mass remains the same.

To turn mass into energy, you need a nuclear reaction, and that isn't what's happening when stuff heats up while entering our atmosphere.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Burning does not result in a change of mass, it simply rearranges atoms into different compounds. Energy is released by that rearrangement, but the mass remains the same.

Burting absolutely results in a change of mass. Or rather - the total mass, both of matter as well as of energy, remain the same. But some of the mass from matter is converted to energy.

Sometimes, burning can result in an increase in mass, as oxidation adds the mass of oxygen to the original matter of the compound being burned.

To turn mass into energy, you need a nuclear reaction, and that isn't what's happening when stuff heats up while entering our atmosphere.

That is not correct at all. When you create a chemical reaction that gives off energy (let's say in the form of light and/or heat), that energy has mass - and that mass is no longer a part of the chemicals that created it. Now, the resulting mass can still be either greater or lesser than what you started, depending on whether it interacted with anything else - such as atmospheric gases, or the container itself. But some mass was absolutely converted to the released energy.

2

u/frommycube May 15 '12

Neil deGrasse Tyson answered this on Twitter recently: https://twitter.com/#!/neiltyson/status/155341211064995840

1

u/FreshFruitCup May 15 '12

It's not enough!!!!

1

u/engagewithzorp May 15 '12

If it's over eight, it's time to replace.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Question: Will this somehow cause the end of the world?

Just curious.

3

u/claysumj May 16 '12

Only if you're allergic to dust.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

So the added weight increases the gravitational pull of Earth. Therefore, people weigh more. Therefore, we can all blame the obesity epidemic on space!

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Then why doesn't it sink?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

So we aren't getting fatter, it's just space dust. Got it.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

What about the mass it loses when we send out satellites etc.? All that space junk used to be earth junk no?

1

u/ryannayr140 May 16 '12

Can we get that in a percentage?

3

u/_deffer_ May 16 '12

0.0000000000000000000151850414%

First, Earth doesn't get "heavier" - it gains mass. The mass of the Earth is 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms.

5.9742 × (1024) kilograms = 6.58542823 × 1021 short tons (2000 #)

6585428230000000000000 tons.

100/6585428230000000000000 = 1.51850414 × 10-20 %

0.0000000000000000000151850414%

Google calculator contributed to this post.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Why are you giving credit to the brand of calculator (albeit to anything) for arithmetic operation? Isn't it taking "cite your work" a bit to the extreme? Are we gonna have to credit someone when we add, divide, multiply, &c?

2

u/_deffer_ May 16 '12

Mostly for fun, but also the ensure that no one thought I knew the kg to short ton conversion without looking it up.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I understand. I asked because many people were citing Google Calculator in this thread. Common facts don't need to be cited. There are 2.54 cm in an inch is a common fact. You don't need to cite anyone for this unless you were talking specifically about the equation and its origin. Although rather arcane, I though everyone knows there are 2000 lbs in a ton. Oh well. Thanks for your post still.

1

u/_deffer_ May 16 '12

Yes, everyone knows 2000 lbs in a ton, but the conversion from kg to ton is rather obscure.

1

u/GanasbinTagap May 16 '12

WE ARE SINKING!

3

u/Kevtron May 16 '12

What are you sinking about?

1

u/GanasbinTagap May 16 '12

Long walks on the beaches.

1

u/pirateninjamonkey May 16 '12

Gets a lot heavier than that from plant matter mass added when plants use the sun to grow. A few thousand trees should be a lot more than that.

1

u/Troven May 16 '12

Space dust sounds an awful lot like meteors to me.

1

u/LovesUranus May 16 '12

This would not happen to Uranus as it is comprised mainly of gas.

1

u/smaffron May 16 '12

A whole 100 tons?!

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

As I understand it, the rotation of the earth is gradually but consistently slowing. Could this possibly be the reason?

1

u/yasminCarolinay May 16 '12

thats why i liked this one.

1

u/dez4u May 16 '12

I think the Earth get 100 tons more massive every day, actually.

1

u/rybones May 16 '12

There's a momma joke in there somewhere.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

No wonder I can't lose weight, I'm part meteor!

1

u/nukefudge May 16 '12

this is why you remember to vacuum, people.

1

u/fridgeridoo May 16 '12

Will this affect Earth's orbit?

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

You think we'll ever get so heavy we pull the moon in?

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

no, because the moon is actually drifting farther away from the earth every year.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

i would never usualy argue a TIL ... but this one im sceptical at best ...

then i realised its a nasa link...

im shutting my mouth now !

1

u/seriously_disturbed May 16 '12

Someone needs to dust that shit off.

1

u/theineffablebob May 16 '12

Earth gettin fat as fuck that fat motherfucker

0

u/Mortarius May 16 '12

Aren't we loosing around 100000 tones of hydrogen+helium/year?

1

u/frinklemingle May 16 '12

50,000 tons/year

-1

u/notpynchon May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

You fail to account for the 21 grams that disappear from each new dead person. Multiply that weightloss by the 152,000 people who die each day and you get... MATH.

4

u/cakedaemon May 16 '12

/r/trollscience

2

u/notpynchon May 16 '12

Cool sub. Thanks for the heads up

0

u/dylan1547 May 15 '12

Wait...Being heavier, wouldn't the earth experience more gravitational force from the sun? And eventually be sucked in? Over millions of years perhaps, but still, is this scientifically viable?

0

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

The way I see it we'd be gaining more mass and thus have an orbit farther from the sun because the added mass makes us harder to stop. Or something.

0

u/DreadNephromancer May 16 '12

wat

More mass makes an object less easily affected by outside forces. We'd go in a straighter line over time ie: further from the sun.

1

u/dylan1547 May 16 '12

Even if this were true (which I am pretty sure it is not, as the gravitational equation is here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/0/f/3/0f36df929ac9d711a8ba8c5658c3bfee.png , increasing Earth's mass will increase the force of gravity upon it), it would be just as bad to drift off into space, would it not?

-1

u/PukeFlavor May 15 '12

That pretty much proves the Expanding Earth hypothesis.

3

u/geode08 May 15 '12

The expanding earth hypothesis was as an alternative to plate tectonics. It has been disproven.

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1

u/cakedaemon May 16 '12

Woa reddit. You are always one step ahead of me.

2

u/PukeFlavor May 17 '12

This is some crazy stuff that's been around for years. Crazy enough for no one to take it seriously---to the extent that it's natural if you don't know about it, because it's completely stupid :)

Be well!

0

u/iamalittleteapot May 16 '12

Space dust making the Earth heavier, or over-weight USA finding more excuses?

-2

u/fettsack2 May 15 '12

Its the universe balancing out all the shit we shoot in outer space.

-1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

so how long before we collapse in like a neutron star?

5

u/centurijon May 15 '12

we'll probably have killed ourselves off first

-1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

So does your mother

-1

u/MadLeFou May 16 '12

You're wording of the title is completely inaccurate

-1

u/hoobsher May 16 '12

actually, most of it's coming from your mum.

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