Estimating the Mass of Earth
Once you know the distance to the moon and the time between full moon phases, you can use a little math to figure out the mass of our Earth! This basic method is what astronomers use to find the masses of all other objects in our universe!
From Kepler’s Third Law (balancing the gravitational force and centripetal force in a circular orbit) we have the formula
Where V is the orbit speed of the moon, D is its distance from Earth’s center to the Moon’s center, and M is the mass of Earth.
DownloadThumbnail Image: Moon Orbit
Credit: NASA / SVS
