However, now we have successfully sent humans into outer space, and even launched Voyager to explore alien civilizations, but we have never done such a simple thing as drilling holes in the earth. What the hell is going on here?
It is easy to drill holes in the earth, but the United States and the former Soviet Union have proved that it is almost impossible to drill through the earth.
In the last century, the United States took the lead in proposing to drill through the Moho surface inside the earth, also known as the Moho surface plan. This plan was first applied to the National Science Foundation by the American Diversity Association in 1952, and was adopted in 1958. 196 1 year, the United States began to explore the Moho interface in Guadeloupe, Mexico.
But within a few years, because of the huge investment, the project was almost stopped, but it was delayed again and again.
Shortly after the American Moho plan was put forward, the former Soviet Union also responded to the idea of drilling holes on the earth and started the drilling plan in kola peninsula on 1970. It is said that all the scientists involved in this experiment can get a house in the capital, so you can imagine how much money has been invested in this project.
However, the Kola deep pit failed to drill through the Moho interface of the earth, so it was stopped for various reasons.
The first is the issue of funds. Although it is relatively simple to make holes on the earth, it is only on the surface of the earth, and the soil on the surface of the earth is soft, so it is easy to make holes. The deeper you go underground, the harder the rock is and the harder it is to make holes. When the former Soviet Union was digging a deep hole in Kola, the drill used to make holes was often damaged and needed to be replaced frequently.
Moreover, the deeper underground, the higher the temperature. At the depth of 1000 meters, the temperature in the deep pit is as high as 300-400, which requires that the drill used for digging the pit must be specially made. These special drills are expensive, and frequent replacement of drills also increases the cost. Moreover, the drill bit for drilling still needs to be changed every once in a while, and the depth of 10 thousand meters often makes it take a lot of time to change the drill bit back and forth.
1992, the drilling of Kola deep pit stopped because the temperature of the deep pit was about twice as high as expected. In addition, after the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, the project was closed due to the lack of financial support, and the final depth of the Kola deep pit stayed at 12262 meters.
If the interior of the earth is regarded as an egg, the depth of 12262 meters is equivalent to that the eggshell has not been drilled through, so you can imagine how difficult it is to drill through the earth.
With our understanding of the earth, we are increasingly aware that the interior of the earth is impenetrable.
In fact, there are some natural passages inside and on the surface of the earth, which are "volcanoes". We know that the earth has a very hot core, and the temperature here is very high, but the pressure here is so great that the earth's core is compressed into a solid core under pressure. The mantle layer outside the solid core, although under great pressure, is not as big as the center of the earth, and the temperature is very high, which makes the material here "baked", so it is a viscous liquid.
The mantle layer in a state of high temperature and high pressure will also want to release its own pressure, so that they will be released along the cracks in the earth plate, which is volcanic eruption. If the material in the deep mantle erupts to the earth's surface, it is called a super mantle plume event.
If one day, we can drill through the earth, then the pressure inside the earth will rise to the surface of the earth along this passage, posing a threat to mankind like a volcanic eruption.
After the volcano erupts, the magma inside the volcano will stay inside the volcanic passage and block the original passage. The passage will not be opened again until the next volcanic eruption.
The eruption of super-large volcanoes will cause a large amount of volcanic ash to be thrown into the air, blocking the sun's rays, lowering the earth's temperature, affecting the photosynthesis of plants, and even causing an energy crisis in the ecological chain. After a period of time, the carbon dioxide content of volcanic eruption will be dominant, leading to an increase in the temperature of the earth. In the process of cooling-heating, the ecological chain of the earth will become fragile, leading to the extinction of a large number of organisms. Because of this, it is not a good thing to cut through the earth.
Of course, from a practical point of view, we can't cross the earth at all. This is because the material inside the earth is so thick and hot that it can melt almost any metal on the surface of the earth, so that we simply don't have the right tools to chisel through the earth.