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If we put all of the spiders on Earth on to the moon, could we block out the moon at night?

This was the question that crossed my mind while at work, for no particular reasoning.

Out of boredom, I elected to try and do the math. So, here goes.

First of all, how many spiders are on Earth?

According to Google research, there are 80,000 spiders for every 1 acre on Earth. On Earth, there are 36,794,240,000 acres.

80 000 x 36 794 240 000 = 2.9435392 × 10¹⁵

= 2,943,539,200,000,000 spiders on Earth.

Now, for the moon. The surface area of the moon is apparently 37.9 million square kilometres. If we want to block out the light of the moon, all we’d really, at *most*, need to do is block out 50% of the moon. So, we need 18.95 million square kilometres of spiders. This equates to 4,657,936,440 acres.

If we say the square inch of 1 spider is 1 square inch, this gives us:

2,943,539,200,000,000 square inch of spiders on Earth.

Which equates to:

469,266,401 acres of spiders.

And so:

4,657,936,440 acres on the moon
- 469,266,401 acres of spiders on earth
= 4,188,670,039 acres uncovered

= 2.62738158436 × 10¹⁶ square inch (sq in) spiders required to completely cover 50% of the moon

= 26,273,815,843,600,000 more spiders would be required

And so, to answer this hypothetically retarded question… based on *very* fuzzy science and math… if we put all of the spiders from Earth on the moon, could we block out the sunlight it reflects at night?

No. We’d need roughly 26.2 quadrillion more spiders.

-Nilesy

PS I am fucking terrified of spiders.