Name: Robert K.
Status: Other
Age: 40s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: February 15, 2004
Question:
If you took all of the oceans,lakes and rivers from
Earth and made a big fat drop of water with it in space, how big would it
be? What would be its mass and "surface" gravity?
Replies:
You can find all the data you need to do the calculation. Basically, what you need to know is
the total volume of water on planet Earth. The U.S. Geological Survey web page below gives you
all the "stuff" you need.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html
Vince Calder
Robert,
The Earth has approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water, meaning that a sphere with
all of that water in it would have a diameter of 1354 kilometers (841 miles).
For comparison, the diameter of the Moon is 3,476 kilometers.
David R. Cook
Atmospheric Research Section
Environmental Research Division
Argonne National Laboratory
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