Graphic Source: Clipart.com
On the way down

Writers and thinkers have been fascinated with the idea of going into the Earth for hundreds of years. Who could ever forget the story "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" by Jules Verne? I loved the story. I also loved the movie. So many other movies are constantly being made that have the same theme that you wish, well I wish, that it could be tried. Can you imagine what an exciting trip it would be? Could we ever really do it? Unfortunately the boring machines we use today take years to complete long tunnels so they could never make the trip. This may be overcome in the future however.

Everything that I have read on boring machines seems to indicate that they really haven't advanced that much over their counter parts from over 50 years ago. They are bigger and stronger but the principles remain the same. I even read an article that indicated that the boring machines we use today could have been built over 100 years ago if someone had worked out the principles. The machines would not have been as big and the principle of ventilation would have had to have been worked out, but it could have been done. It might have even been possible to have built a steam powered boring machine.

So how would we be able to tunnel into the Earth in a reasonable amount of time? I guess we would need a super powerful laser that could melt everything in its path almost instantly. With this kind of power comes the penalty of having to generate enough electricity to accomplish powering this device. We might even have to use atomic energy to accomplish this. I am not talking here of using a typical nuclear power generator but I am talking about a new type of nuclear power, one where the power generated is not made to heat water as is done in electrical generating plants. I am talking about something that we don't have yet and it is pure speculation, but it is fun to think about. We might even use bubble power to power our laser. Science suggests that the power of bursting bubbles is way beyond anything that we have ever dreamed of.

Graphic Source Me (Bet you can tell)
Earth's internals

Now suppose that we start up our drill. We are secured in a air conditioned titanium, electrically insulated capsule and behind us is our bubble power source. There is a very powerful wind generator built into the capsule to blow the molten rock away from the capsule as we travel along. The entire machine is mounted on super strong heat resistant treads so that it can travel forward. If we could get our speed up to 5 miles per hour, it would take us about 35.5 days to get to the exact center of the Earth. The next problem is that we can't really get to the center because we would have to pass through a deep liquid core that scientists suggest may be as hot as 3700 degrees C before we could get to the inner core which might be as hot as 4300 degrees C. The Earth is made up of three main parts. The crust that we live on is only 1/2 of 1 % of the total mass of the Earth. We think of the oceans as being the biggest part of the Earth and indeed they do cover over 2/3s of it, but they are only 30% of the Earth's crust because the continental crust is much thicker. The next main part of the Earth is the Moho. This is the boundary between crust and mantle. The full name is the Mohorovicic Discontinulty which is Moho for short. The last main part of the Earth is the Mantle. After you pass through the Mantle you are headed to the Core.

Why are we so worried about the temperatures if we are able to air condition our capsule for the trip? When temperatures get as high as are predicted for the Earth's core you have a problem. The problem is that steel melts at 2500 degrees F. If we convert that to Centigrade it is 1371 degrees. Even Titanium melts at 1660 degrees Centigrade So how can we penetrate the core if the temperature ranges from 3700 to 4300 degrees Centigrade? Our machine would be melted almost immediately not to mention what would happen to us and even if it didn't melt, we would have no way of keeping from frying ourselves along with all of our equipment.

So we will have to settle for going only part of the way down. Of course this all assumes the the scientists are correct in stating that the inside of the Earth contains this tremendous heat. They probably are, as witnessed by all the volcanic activity but there may be spaces, large spaces down there. We might go down, say a distance of 50 miles and find that there are huge caves and even forms of life that we never knew existed. After all we are finding out that life can exist in boiling water in the vents at the bottom of the ocean so why should we rule out life in extremely hot, dry places?

So how deep is it to the Earth's center?

The distance to the center of the Earth is about 6378 kilometers. It one were to travel through it to the other side he or she would have to travel about 12756.3 kilometers. I always do a rough calculation of kilometers multipied by 2/3rds to get the approximate miles.

There are theories that state that the Earth's core is not what we expect. They go on further to suggest that we have a tiny star in the center of our planet and that is supplying all the energy inside the Earth. If this is true, it would have the same effect as the predicted model for the Earth and thus be very hard to discover. The theory goes on to state that many other planets may also have stars at their center and planet formation is quite different than our current theories. I always felt that there is a chance that this theory could be true and why not, there are plenty of stars out there and if one was small enough, why couldn't a planet form around it? I am assuming that the planet formed around the star and that the star somehow didn't get into the planet. A tiny star might be so heavy that if it hit a planet, it might sink to the center however. This certainly is an intriguing thought.

So we can't get to the Earth's core but we can get down deeper in the Earth than ever before. We didn't find anything this trip, but we know that there is always the next. It is sort of the land equivalent of deep sea diving. You never know what you might come across.