This was some joker's idea of an "unanswerable" question, a "stumper." But the Dr. Hal show always provides an answer. Perhaps not what everyone would deem a "right" answer, but at any rate, this one's not too hard. In fact, there are two (or more) possible answers. The quick one is, approximately 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (6 times 10 to the twenty-fourth power-- must write this out, some versions of this posting don't feature typography which would correctly represent the expression) kilograms. Well, that's a lot of mass. And it's more proper to talk of mass rather than weight in this context because weight requires a gravitational field (see below). How did they figure this out? Ask Pete Goldie. But, really, the other answer is that the Earth, for all its bulk, for all the mass of its molten iron core, doesn't weigh anything. The Earth is a falling body, falling into the Sun, and objects in free-fall have no weight. (Don't worry-- this is a feature of Orbital mechanics. We're not going to fall into the Sun and be fried. Not this Wednesday, anyway.
