How heavy is the moon??

Question: How heavy is the moon??
- Keywords:
  heavy,
  moon
Asked by emmilyyyy to Charlie, Eoin, Jemma, Julian, Steve on 17 Mar 2011.
- Jemma Ransom answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  I’m afraid I don’t know – this is probably a question best answered by Charlie. You’d need pretty big scales to wigh it though wouldn’t you? And you couldn’t do it using normal Earth scales since the weight of an object is the sum of its mass and the effect of gravity pushing it down to the ground, and the effect of gravity is different in space – It would be one heck of a job!
- Stephen Moss answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  Hi Emmilyyyy
  I believe the moon is around 100 billions tons, though I’m not sure how accurate this figure is.
- Julian Rayner answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  Heavy isn’t quite the right question, because heavy implies weight, which is dependent on gravity, which is different on the moon and on earth. I looked up the Moon’s mass on the web though – how much stuff it has, and found 7 x 10^22 kg, or about 1% of the earth.
  
  The moon is very cool though – it must have been amazing to be alive during the moon landings, and look up at the moon at night knowing that there were human beings walking around on it!
- Charlie Ryan answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  hi emily of the top of my head i don’t have a clue!! millions of tons??
  Just looked it up on wikipedia and it is 7.3 × 10 to the 22 kilograms. Thats 730000000000000000000000 kgs, or 730000000000000000000 metric tons!! Quite a lot then!
- Eoin Lettice answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  The word ‘heavy’ makes this question a difficult question to answer. Weight is relative because it has to do with the force of gravity which changes depending on where you are in the galaxy.
  The mass of the moon is extimated to be around 7.35×10 to the power of 22 kg >> that’s 735 with 20 zeros after it!!
  That makes it about 1/80th the mass of the earth.
  
  Eoin.

Question: How heavy is the moon??

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