“Unearthing the Unknown: What Secrets Await if You Dared to Dig Straight to the Earth’s Core?”

Have you ever found yourself pondering what lies beneath our feet? Sure, you might think it’s just dirt and rocks, but oh boy, it gets a lot crazier the deeper you go! Picture this: the furthest any human has ever poked a hole into Mother Earth is a mere 12.2 kilometers at the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia – about 0.2 percent of the way to the center, by the way. While that sounds impressive, it’s like dipping your toe into an ocean and claiming you’ve swum across the Atlantic! So, why haven’t we ventured further down that rabbit hole? Well, turns out, digging to the center of the Earth presents a multitude of challenges including searing temperatures hotter than a pizza oven and more pressure than a Hollywood director at award season. But let’s dive into the wild possibilities if we could somehow muster the technology to breach those subterranean confines! Ready for an adventure? LEARN MORE.

Here is what would happen if you were actually able to dig to the centre of the Earth.

Ever wondered why humans haven’t journeyed to the centre of the Earth before? Well it isn’t for lack of trying.

The deepest man has ever gotten in its journey to dig through our planet is the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Murmansk, Russia which reached its maximum depth of 12.2 kilometres (40,230 ft) deep in 1989.

The project was another extension of the ongoing race between America and the former USSR to prove their might as the world’s dominant superpower, which they decided could be measured in spaceflight, nuclear warfare and hole digging.

It would take the Soviets around 20 years to drill this far into the planet before the project was ultimately abandoned.

All that remains of the world’s deepest hole (Rakot13/Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Turns out it’s a lot more complicated than grabbing your shovel, or an industrial drill if you just happen to have one lying around, and digging.

Take a moment to recall your primary school science lessons and you’ll remember that our planet is made up of a variety of layers starting at the crust (which is the layer we live on) and going down into the mantle, outer core and finally the inner core.

To add some further context to the depth of the Earth, the Kola Borehole didn’t even make it through the crust, with YouTuber science communicator Cleo Abram revealing in a recent explainer video that this hole was just 0.2 percent of the way to the centre. Which means we’ve still got a very long way to go.

An interpretation of what inside the Earth looks like (Getty Stock Images)

Temperature is a major reason why digging to the centre of the Earth is harder than just drilling, with National Geographic stating that the inner core is around 5,200°C. In order to successfully get a drill through this screaming ball of hell scientists would also need to create a piece of technology which could withstand this heat.

Pressure is another factor making digging a hole to the centre of our planet difficult, with any tool used needing to be able to withstand the weight of ‘6.6 sextillion tons of rock’ pressing inward (via HowStuffWorks).

In Abram’s video she explains what would happen hypothetically if you were able to create a tool which would allow you to reach the centre.

Drill through all 6,371 kilometres of the Earth’s crust and you hit the mantle, which has a gooey consistency due to the combination of high temperatures and pressure.

Make it through all 2,900 kilometres of the mantle and you’ll hit the outer core, with Abram calls a ‘liquid soup of metals’ which reaches 4,400°C. The liquid outer core is also responsible for creating electric currents which, according to Abram, create a magnetic field around the Earth which protects us from deadly cosmic radiation.

Once you hit the inner core things become solid once again, with extremely high amounts of pressure meaning that iron atoms at the centre are simply unable to turn into a liquid.

Create a drill which can withstand all of the above and congratulations, you’ve made it to a place where no man has ever been before.