Earth cutaway from core to exosphere. Partially to scale
Travel to the Earth's center, though not currently considered scientifically possible, is a popular theme in science fiction. Some subterranean fiction involves travel to the Earth's center, either finding a Hollow Earth or the Earth's molten core.
Though no scientists have seriously proposed travel to the Earth's center, planetary scientist David J. Stevenson suggested sending a probe to the core as a thought experiment.[1][2] So far, the deepest humans have drilled is just over 12 kilometers, (7.62 miles), in the Kola Superdeep Borehole.[3]
Hollow Earth
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Main article: Hollow Earth
A "Hollow Earth" theory posits that the planet Earth has a hollow interior and probably a habitable inner surface. At one time, adventure literature made this idea popular. The scientific community dismisses it as pseudoscience - but it remains a popular feature of many fantasy and science fiction worlds, and is an explanation to conspiracy theories.
In science fiction
Most famous, Jules Verne's 1864 science fiction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth set the stage for travel to the Earth's center.
The 2003 film The Core concerns a team that has to drill to the center of the Earth and set off a series of nuclear explosions in order to restart the rotation of Earth's core. It was loosely based on the novel Core. The vehicle used in the movie was a snake-like ship, dubbed Virgil, equipped with a powerful laser drill, a small nuclear reactor for power, an unobtainium shell against the intense heat and pressures, a powerful x-ray camera for viewing outside, and a system of impellers for movement and control. While the film did not depict the earth as hollow, it did demonstrate that a large portion would be navigable to Virgil.
In the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, the season three Technodrome location is the Earth's core, and transport modules are used to drill up to the streets. Season three also features the episode Turtles at the Earth's Core, with a deep underground cave where dinosaurs live, and a crystal of energy that works like the Sun to keep the dinosaurs alive.
Don Rosa's 1995 Uncle Scrooge story The Universal Solvent[4] constructs a plausible way of travel to the planet's core using cutting-edge 1950s technology, albeit on a completely impossible foundation. The titular solvent condenses everything but diamonds into super-dense dust. When spilled, it bores a spherical shaft into the center of the planet. A recovery effort uses a makeshift platform that descends in freefall, then using an electric motor and wheels as it approaches zero gravity, then using rocket engines on the ascent. Rosa goes into great detail of the journey: the structure of the Earth is illustrated, the shaft is kept in a vacuum as several thousand kilometers of atmosphere would be lethal, the ducks are forced to wear spacesuits, fast for days, and are not entirely certain that the super-dense heat shield will hold. At the same time the author maintains continuity with Carl Barks, so earthquakes are created by spherical Fermies and Terries.
See also
Deep drilling projects
- Project Mohole, an ambitious attempt to drill through the Earth's crust into the Mohorovicic discontinuity
- Chikyu Hakken, Japan's outreach program to promote it's drilling vessel as a contribution to the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program
- Kola Superdeep Borehole, the result of a scientific drilling project of the former USSR
- Deep Sea Drilling Program, an ocean drilling project running from 1968 to 1983
- Ocean Drilling Program, an international cooperative effort to explore and study the composition and structure of the earth's ocean basins
- Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, an international marine research drilling program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth
References
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