text: Variation Earth's mass is variable, subject to both gain and loss due to the accretion of in-falling material, including micrometeorites and cosmic dust and the loss of hydrogen and helium gas, respectively. The combined effect is a net loss of material, estimated at  per year. This amount is  of the total earth mass.  The  annual net loss is essentially due to 100,000 tons lost due to atmospheric escape, and an average of 45,000 tons gained from in-falling dust and meteorites. This is well within the mass uncertainty of 0.01% (), so the estimated value of Earth's mass is unaffected by this factor.
  Mass loss is due to atmospheric escape of gases. About 95,000 tons of hydrogen per year () and 1,600 tons of helium per year are lost through atmospheric escape. The main factor in mass gain is in-falling material, cosmic dust, meteors, etc. are the most significant contributors to Earth's increase in mass. The sum of material is estimated to be  annually, although this can vary significantly; to take an extreme example, the Chicxulub impactor, with a midpoint mass estimate of , added 900 million times that annual dustfall amount to the Earth's mass in a single event.
  Additional changes in mass are due to the mass–energy equivalence principle, although these changes are relatively negligible. Mass loss due to the combination of nuclear fission and natural radioactive decay is estimated to amount to 16 tons per year.
  An additional loss due to spacecraft on escape trajectories has been estimated at  since the mid-20th century. Earth lost about 3473 tons in the initial 53 years of the space age, but the trend is currently decreasing.