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Asked by socka5 to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 17 Mar 2011 in Categories: General.
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Luna Munoz answered on 16 Mar 2011:
You probably would die if you jumped in. I don’t know about the gravity, but I would imagine that it would be stronger rather than weaker.
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David Pyle answered on 16 Mar 2011:
Let’s assume that the Earth is a perfect sphere, and that the hole you dig miraculously stays open. At the surface of sphere of a given mass, the gravitational acceleration that you experience is the same as if all of that mass were at a point in the centre of the sphere. As you drop into the hole, there is progressively less mass in the sphere inside the Earth (with a radius equal to your distance to the Earth’s centre). The mass that is ‘outside’ you has no effect. So, as you approach the cente of the Earth the gravitational attraction will fall to zero, and you will become weightless. Unfortunately, the temperature will rise to around 6000 – 7000 K, and the pressure would increase to about 3.5 million times the surface pressure..
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Melanie Stefan answered on 17 Mar 2011:
Woah, you can read my mind! I’ve thought about this question so many times! First off, the moon isn’t zero gravity, it’s just less gravity than earth. It’s the mass of the earth that causes the gravity, so in theory you would stop in the center of the earth (or its center of mass, to be precise). Unless there is some (strong) force that moves you away from it. It’s probably quite hot in there, so you wouldn’t survive. Although if it was possible to dig a tunnel from here to Australia, the people who did the digging would have figured out how to deal with that!
Comments
elhermano commented on :
i had a long discussion about the possibility of digging holes through the earth, i think it would be possible although you’d have to have some sort of drill that could resist the immense pressure.
David commented on :
Yes – and you’d need a casing to stop the hole from closing up!
elhermano commented on :
Yeah … a solution i thought of for releasing the pressure is that you could drill smaller holes around the world, like mini volcanoes to release the pressure. Not sure if that would work or not … ?
David commented on :
Good thinking, but this would only release the ‘excess’ pressure – the pressure at the centre of the earth is due to the weight of the overlying rock (density x g x depth). Alternatively, if the casing was completely rigid, then you could hold the hole open. The hole would then be at atmospheric pressure, and deeper down it would be air filled, so not quite such a high pressure..
elhermano commented on :
Maybe you could make a vacuum inside it to stop the heat, if that was an issue. you’d have to have some sort of method for cooling the drill so it didn’t melt instantly when drilling the hole itself, possibly some sort of liquid being sprayed out the end to keep it cool. i thought originally that there could be some sort of element or compund that could resist it, although you can predict all the elements and i don’t think you could so i think liquid is the way to go.
ladygaga commented on :
When you dig a hole, if you dig deep enough don’t you get a volcano? =(
David commented on :
Depends on where you dig! If you start in the middle of one continent, and head right through to the middle of another then you won’t meet anything molten until you get to the outer core.