Your weight on Ceres
A person who weighs 150 pounds on Earth weighs about 4.4 pounds on Ceres, because Ceres's surface gravity is 0.029 g. A person who weighs 70 kilograms on Earth weighs about 2.0 kilograms on Ceres.
Illustration computed from Ceres's measured and derived values, not a photograph.
What it’s like to stand here
Why your weight changes here
Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt and the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system, round because its own gravity pulled it into a ball. Even so, that gravity is feeble: about 3% of Earth's, so a person who weighs 150 pounds at home would weigh around 4 pounds there. Gravity follows g = GM/r², and Ceres has only about 0.016% of Earth's mass. Its small radius, about 470 kilometres, brings you close to its centre and helps, but nowhere near enough to make up for so little mass. Your mass would be unchanged; weight is only the force gravity exerts on it. Ceres is a mix of rock and ice, probably with salty water still hidden underground, and NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which orbited it from 2015 to 2018, measured its gravity closely enough to map its interior.
Your weight on every world in the solar system
Every body gravityfinder carries, with its gravity relative to Earth’s and what you would weigh there. Type your weight in the calculator above and the table follows it. The four giants have no surface, so theirs is the pull at the cloud tops.
| World | Type | Gravity | Weight (lb) | Weight (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | planet | 0.38× | 56.5 | 25.6 |
| Venus | planet | 0.90× | 136 | 61.6 |
| Earth | planet | 1.00× | 150 | 68 |
| Mars | planet | 0.38× | 56.7 | 25.7 |
| Jupitercloud tops | planet | 2.53× | 379 | 172 |
| Saturncloud tops | planet | 1.07× | 160 | 72.5 |
| Uranuscloud tops | planet | 0.90× | 136 | 61.5 |
| Neptunecloud tops | planet | 1.14× | 171 | 77.5 |
| Ceres | dwarf planet | 0.029× | 4.4 | 2 |
| Pluto | dwarf planet | 0.063× | 9.4 | 4.3 |
| The Moon | moon of Earth | 0.17× | 24.8 | 11.2 |
| Io | moon of Jupiter | 0.18× | 27.5 | 12.5 |
| Europa | moon of Jupiter | 0.13× | 20.1 | 9.1 |
| Ganymede | moon of Jupiter | 0.15× | 21.8 | 9.9 |
| Callisto | moon of Jupiter | 0.13× | 18.9 | 8.6 |
| Titan | moon of Saturn | 0.14× | 20.7 | 9.4 |
| Enceladus | moon of Saturn | 0.012× | 1.7 | 0.8 |
| Triton | moon of Neptune | 0.079× | 11.9 | 5.4 |
| Charon | moon of Pluto | 0.029× | 4.4 | 2 |
Worked example: the formula with Ceres's numbers
Surface gravity comes from Newton’s law of gravitation: g = G × M ÷ r², where G is the gravitational constant, M the body’s mass and r the distance from its centre to where you stand.
- G = 6.674 × 10⁻¹¹ m³ kg⁻¹ s⁻²
- M = 9.39 × 10²⁰ kg (Ceres's mass)
- r = 469 km = 4.69 × 10⁵ m (mean radius)
- g = 6.674 × 10⁻¹¹ × 9.39 × 10²⁰ ÷ (4.69 × 10⁵)² = 0.285 m/s²
Earth, through the same formula, gives 9.82 m/s². So Ceres pulls 0.285 ÷ 9.82 = 0.029 times as hard as Earth.
Your weight on Ceres is your Earth weight times that ratio: 150 lb × 0.029 = 4.4 lb, or about 4.4 pounds.
The exoplanets closest to Ceres's gravity
No exoplanet gravityfinder states a gravity for comes within 10% of Ceres's 0.029 g; these are the nearest. Each has a mass and size good enough for gravityfinder to state its surface gravity.
More about being on Ceres
If your children grew up herea playful thought experiment
Barely any weight to fight, at 0.03 times Earth's gravity. A child who grew up here could grow remarkably tall and willowy, about 2.0x taller than on Earth: a 5 ft 10 in adult could stand nearer 11 ft 10 in, with long thin limbs and delicate bones that never had to bear much load.
- Bones
- Light and slender
- With little weight to carry, the growing skeleton lays down far less bone, the way astronauts' bones thin in months of low gravity.
- Heart
- Unhurried
- With less weight pulling blood down toward the feet, the heart has far less work to do.
- Movement
- Bounding and springy
- So little weight means each step would carry the body up and forward in long, floating strides.
A playful thought experiment from this world’s gravity, not a prediction about any real person. No human has ever grown up off Earth, so no one truly knows; the direction (taller in low gravity, shorter and stockier in high) follows how growing bodies respond to weight.
Hear how a voice sounds herea computed acoustic demoEXPERIMENTAL · just for fun
You would hear nothing at all.
With essentially no atmosphere, there is no medium to carry sound. You could shout into someone's helmet from an inch away and they would hear nothing: space is silent.
How long to get there with today’s craftCALCULATED
At the speed of the Parker Solar Probe, the fastest craft ever built, the trip to Ceres would take about 16 days; a real mission took the Dawn probe about 7 and a half years, with more than a year in orbit around Vesta on the way.
See Ceres's full page for its orbit, size, sky and how to see it.
Common questions
How much would I weigh on Ceres?
A person who weighs 150 pounds on Earth weighs about 4.4 pounds on Ceres, because Ceres's surface gravity is 0.029 g. A person who weighs 70 kilograms on Earth weighs about 2.0 kilograms on Ceres.
What is the gravity on Ceres?
Ceres's surface gravity is about 0.285 m/s², 0.029 times Earth's (0.029 g). gravityfinder computes it from Ceres's mass and radius with g = GM/r².
What is the difference between mass and weight?
Mass is the amount of matter in you, and it is the same everywhere. Weight is the force gravity exerts on that mass. On Ceres your mass would be unchanged, but a scale would read 0.029 times what it reads on Earth, because gravity there is weaker.
How high could I jump on Ceres?
About 34.5 times as high as on Earth, because the same push from your legs works against 0.029 times the gravity. A 50 centimetre standing jump on Earth would carry you about 17 metres on Ceres, and you would stay in the air about 34.5 times as long.
Where in the solar system would you weigh the most and the least?
Of the worlds with ground to stand on, you would weigh the most on Earth (1.00 g) and the least on Enceladus (0.012 g), where a person who weighs 150 pounds on Earth would weigh about 1.7 pounds. The strongest pull of all is at Jupiter's cloud tops, 2.53 g, but there is nothing there to stand on.
Which exoplanets have gravity like Ceres's?
Of the exoplanets gravityfinder states a surface gravity for, Kepler-33 c (0.038 g), Kepler-80 g (0.051 g), Kepler-138 b (0.17 g) and K2-138 f (0.19 g) come closest to Ceres's 0.029 g. None is within 10%, so read these as the nearest, not a match.
Is Ceres a planet or an asteroid?
Both labels have applied. Ceres was hailed as a planet when Giuseppe Piazzi found it in 1801, then counted as the first and largest asteroid, and since 2006 it has been classed as a dwarf planet: round under its own gravity, but sharing its orbit with the rest of the asteroid belt.
How do I calculate my weight on Ceres?
Multiply your Earth weight by 0.029, Ceres's gravity relative to Earth's. For 150 pounds that is 150 × 0.029 = about 4.4 pounds. The 0.029 comes from g = GM/r² with Ceres's mass and radius, divided by the same calculation for Earth.
Gravity computed by gravityfinder from Ceres's mass and radius in the NASA planetary fact sheets (gravity = mass ÷ radius², with Earth = 1). Measured mass.