The Earth has undoubtedly been around a lot longer than humans. Its creation almost five billion years ago was due to accretion, a process where space dust collides and eventually accumulates into a larger mass. Since then, small occurrences of accretion have continued through the impact of meteors and meteorites, which have added to Earth’s mass.
However, that begs the question:
Is Earth still getting bigger?
In the early 1900s, most geologists would say that it was. This was due to the widely accepted “Expanding Earth Hypothesis,” which stated that continental drift was a side effect of Earth expanding. That idea was later refuted in the 1960s, when the idea of plate tectonics was introduced, as it provided a much better explanation for continental movement.
Thanks to advances in geology and satellite technology, we now know that Earth isn’t expanding. In fact, recent research indicates that the Earth is actually shrinking. Let’s explore why exactly this is.
Is the Earth Shrinking?
Despite the Law of Conservation of Mass, which states that matter is neither created nor destroyed, Earth’s size isn’t necessarily constant. As it orbits the sun, it travels through vast amounts of space dust, which enters the atmosphere and then settles on the Earth’s surface. This results in about 43 tons of mass being added to Earth every day, adding up to about 16,500 tons a year. In the larger scale of things, however, this is almost nothing compared to Earth’s mass, which is about 5,972,200,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
While Earth is slowly gaining mass from the settling space dust, it’s losing more due to an atmospheric escape. This occurs when oxygen, hydrogen, and helium atoms absorb enough energy from the sun to leak into the atmosphere. It’s evaporation, except on a much larger scale. This results in a loss of around 82,700 tons of mass a year, which is again an exceedingly small amount compared to Earth’s mass. However, it’s big enough that there is a net loss of mass every year (around 66,200 tons, to be exact).
This isn’t cause for concern, though. With the current rate of leakage, it would take a quadrillion years for the Earth to evaporate completely, which is already longer than the sun and the universe’s expected lifetime.
How Scientists Measure Changes in Earth’s Mass and Size
But how exactly do scientists quantify this change in Earth’s mass? Since Earth is so huge, a variety of tools are needed to measure its size. These include satellite systems, global positioning systems (GPS), and interferometry— an imaging technique used to reveal how the Earth’s surface moves and changes. Using these technologies, scientists calculate the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), a coordinate system central to Earth. They use this to calculate the average change in Earth’s radius; in 2011, it was found to be a tenth of a millimeter per year (the thickness of a human’s hair) and deemed statistically insignificant.
Although Earth may be slowly shrinking, the change is so small it has no effect on our lives. These subtle exchanges of space dust and gases highlight how dynamic yet balanced Earth truly is. Through studying these processes, we can gain a greater appreciation for how Earth maintains equilibrium and continues to evolve within the variable environment of space.
At Vanderbilt, for instance, the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences explores how natural processes shape our planet. Whether it’s the movement of continents and the flow of rivers to the dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere, their research ultimately helps us better understand why Earth behaves in such complex ways.
References
Getty Images. “The Earth Space Planet 3D Illustration Background City Lights On Planet.” Image ID 1442849073. Accessed November 3, 2025. https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/the-earth-space-planet-3d-illustration-background-city-lights-on-planet-gm1442849073-482041331
Coffey, D. (2022, January 2). Is Earth expanding or shrinking? Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/is-earth-expanding-or-shrinking
Felton, J. (2025, June 12). Expanding Earth: The Strange (And Wrong) Hypothesis That The Earth Is Expanding Like A Balloon. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/expanding-earth-the-strange-pre-tectonics-hypothesis-that-the-earth-is-expanding-like-a-balloon-79596
Munroe, R. (2019, December 10). Is Earth Getting Bigger Over Time? Nytimes.com; The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/science/earth-size-mass.html#
NASA Research Confirms it’s a Small World, After All. (2011, August 16). NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-research-confirms-its-a-small-world-after-all/
