Earth is located in the outer edge of our galaxy, called the Milky Way, about 28,000 light years from the galactic center. It is part of a Solar System that includes eight other known planets, and the only known planet with the ability to sustain life as we know it. The Milky Way is one of billions of spiral galaxies in the universe. (Image: NASA, Galaxy M83, similar size and shape to the Milky Way)
Earth's Weight (Mass) 5.972 sextillion (1,000 trillion) metric tons. That's 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons! Actually, scientists prefer to refer to this measurement as the Earth's mass instead of weight since weight is the result of Earth's gravitational pull on another object. And the Earth cannot pull on itself! As the Earth orbits the Sun, it is weightless. If the Earth were placed on the Sun, it would weigh more than if it were placed on Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system but much smaller than the sun. Yet, Earth (or any other object for that matter) would have the same mass regardless of where it is located
Check out more details about our planet Earth and our planetary neighbors in the Earth at a Glance feature on ecology.com.
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