Help with a question for my science project.

[ivanskavar]

My question is this: what would happen to the earth if an object on the earth itself grew to be larger than the earth? Obviously, this is something that would never happen . . . but, if you can imagine a small ball that grew increasingly larger with the passing of each moment until, ultimately, it grew to be bigger than the earth itself. What would happen? Thank you all so much for your help.

[kgudger]

Hello and welcome to the forums:

I would ask you, "What would happen to what?" In other words, define some parameter that you would observe as the ball grew. How about gravity at some point on the earth? You could model this as the mass of the ball increased (but be careful how you define the size of the ball (density) as the mass increases.) There are other things you could calculate as well, but as with all experiments, please remember to have only one dependent variable.

Best, Keith

[ivanskavar]

Hello & thanks for taking the time to respond. Maybe if I explain it a bit more. This is being used in the context of a story we have to write for science class (which is supposed to involve elements of science fiction meeting science reality). I want my story to revolve around an object that starts to grow and literally never stops growing but just keeps growing and growing more and more every minute--pushing its way through everything (buildings, mountains, water, etc.)--and continues to grow til grows to be larger than the size of even the earth itself. So that's the science "fiction" aspect, obviously. The part I'm trying to work on is the science fact. What sort of ramifications would such a fictional item pose in reality? Thanks again for anybody's time and help.