Have you ever thought about that old saying--it’s a small world, after all.
Now, whilst being a pretty terrifying and insanity inducing amusement park ride--as
well as being a nice, heart-warming testimony as to our interconnectedness as a species--it’s
just plain wrong!
Our planet is bloody huge.
I mean, yeah--you stand it up next to Jupiter or, you know, the Sun--and it may look like
a little pale blue dot indeed--but as far as habitable, none-cataclysmic celestial bodies
go--our Earth is pretty damn spacious.
But it’s an interesting notion, isn’t it?
How big *could* it get, obviously within the parameters of hypothetical geology--and more
importantly, is there anything out there that’s making us… bigger?
Let’s take a look.
Hello Internet--what’s going on, and once again--welcome back to the most inquisitive
channel on YouTube--Life’s Biggest Questions.
As per usual, I’ll be your disembodied floating voice Jack Finch--as today, we curiously ask
the question--How Big Can The Earth Get?
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you, that scene was of course from 2017’s Guardian of the Galaxy
2--where if you were to ask this very same question to Peter Quill’s dad--Ego, played
by Kurt Russell--how big your planet could and would get--is merely a matter of how big
your… well, how big your ego is.
Hey--I’m not saying there’s any kind of clear correlation--but who knows, it might
put things into perspective a little bit.
You see--although it may sound a little bizarre--the thought of the Earth growing in size hasn’t
always sounded as outlandish as it now seems--given the fact that we’ve figured out the whole
plate tectonics, and, yeah--we’re all pretty much decided that the Earth isn’t going
to head into any kind of unexpected growth spurt.
But--let’s not solely focus on that for the moment--and instead, cast our gaze back
a little bit.
Well, a lot.
All the way back to 1834--to a time where the legendary naturalist, geologist and biologist--the
Father of Evolution itself, Charles Darwin--was careering his way across the seven seas in
pursuit of more unrequited knowledge.
During the second voyage of his famous HMS Beagle journey--whilst in Patagonia--Darwin
investigated a series of stepped plains that featured a set of raised beaches, which indicated
to him that a huge area of South America--at some point in time, had been uplifted to its
present height by a succession of elevations.
Essentially, he saw that the Earth indicated that somewhere beneath the outer crust--a
shifting in the visible landscape required the gradual expansion of some sort of central
mass.
It got him thinking--and later, in 1835--he extended this same concept to the Andes Mountain
Range--indicating that its existence was evidence of a curved enlargement of the earth’s crust,
due to the action, again--of one connected force.
Although only a brief moment in Darwin’s geological endeavour--he later moved on from
this idea--and instead proposed that as mountains rose up over the ages--in turn, the ocean
floor subsided--explaining the formation of coral reefs and ocean atolls.
Obviously, Darwin was a genius--and he was certainly on to something, if only it wasn’t
for those pesky plate tectonics--but it gave rise to a brief school of though, encapsulated
in a theory known as The Expanding Earth hypothesis.
In it, this theory stated that the position and relative movement of the continents on
our Planet--is at least partially down to the *volume* of Earth increasing.
What this theory mainly focused on though, was the notion of Mass Addition.
To cut a long story short, although Darwin’s findings were purely observational--and he
never stated a clearly definitive stance on the matter--it gave light to many other geological
minds of the time.
One of them was Ivan Osipovich Yarkovsky--who in 1888 thought that he’d cracked the mechanical
explanation of gravitation--and suggested that our Earth was constantly absorbing some
kind of strange material--some sort of aether--which was then transformed into a new chemical element--forcing
our planet, and every other celestial body in the universe--to expand.
In other words--the addition--of mass.
Essentially, what this theory of Mass Addition proposed--was that our planet, as well as
every other celestial body in the universe--through gravity, was like some sort of giant, spherical
magnet--picking up billions of metaphorical iron filings that existed somewhere in the
cosmos as an unknown chemical element--and through an unknown process--converted that
into regular matter--which somewhere down the line, caused mountain ranges to form over
millions of years.
And yeah, obviously--that indeed sounds incredibly outlandish are pretty darn impossible given
our current understanding of geology--but back then, it was pretty revolutionary thinking.
You see the thing is--in some ways--that *is* exactly what happens.
I mean, think of it this way.
It’s a well known fact that our Earth *is* constantly acquiring mass.
Don’t believe me?
Just ask NASA--as the most recent readings indicate, every day around 100 tons of meteoroids--fragments
of dust and gravel--sometimes even large rocks--enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
Now, of course--the majority of this cosmic debris burns up in the atmosphere and then
lands back down as dust--but technically speaking, this process is indeed evidence of Mass Addition--albeit
tiny.
And obviously, perhaps not the straw that we need to break this camel's back.
You see, however small--this accretion is only a miniscule fraction of the actual mass
increase needed to support the expanding Earth hypothesis.
After all, if you want to move mountains--it’s going to take a little more than a few specks
of space dust.
However--there is another incredibly damning caveat to add to this pile of expanding Earth.
If this addition of new mass would indeed, over billions of years, increase the size
of our Earth--surely, that increased gravity would have altered the orbits of, not only
our Planet--but every other object in the Solar System.
That includes the moon’s orbit--which of course would seemingly be under the same effects
of Earth--and then in turn, affect both of their orbits.
Yeah--now, we have the leading theory of plate tectonics to explain the very clear movement
of our Planet--but still, it’s an interesting thought, right?
Although contradicted by the scientific community--the Expanding Earth hypothesis *was* on to something,
in some respects.
Technically speaking, our planet *is* gaining mass every single day.
How big can it get?
Errrr ...maybe we should ask this question again in like... a few trillion years.
Well, there we have it guys--our roundabout answer to the question--How Big Can The Earth
Get?
What do you guys think?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Have any more to add?
Then let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any intriguing
insights that you may have on the matter.
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binge--then please, make sure to take a look at our neatly compiled playlists--arranged
for your eternal hypothetical questioning binge.
On that note--unfortunately, that’s all we’ve got time for in today's video--cheers
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As per usual, I’ve been your disembodied floating voice Jack Finch you’ve been watching
Life’s Biggest Questions--and until next time, you take it easy.