When I was a kid, I liked to dig holes in my backyard in Cincinnati.
My grandfather joked that if I kept digging, I would end up in China.
Thatsthe antipode, or opposite point on Earths surface, from my town.
© Jordan Lye
But I only had a garden spade to move the earth.
Now,Im a geophysicistand know a lot more about Earths structure.
Stronger rocks can support bigger forces, but all rocks can fail if the pressure is great enough.
The Earth is made up of layers. The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the planet, including the brittle upper portion of the mantle and the crust.
A good rule of thumb is to make the hole three times wider than its depth.
Luckily, no one was hurt, but the landslides causedhundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Suppose you were to try digging through the Earth, and that the planet was all solid.
(We know that its not, but this is the simplest scenario.)
Clearly, this is an impossible task that would completely alter the planets shape.
Deep boreholes like this one can tell scientists a lot about Earths interior.
Drilling is a tedious process.
Assuming steady progress at this rate, it would take hundreds of years to drill through the Earth.
As the bit drills deeper, it takes more time to replace broken parts.
Pressure is also an issue.
Borehole walls are under tremendous pressure and prone to failing.
The slow movement of Earths mantle would eventually cause a borehole to bend and collapse.
Current drilling technologies just arent fast enough or durable enough to drill through Earths mantle and core.
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