Featured Image Credit: HyperPhysics
Topics: Science
Gerrard Kaonga
In what would be the most incredible - and probably dangerous - journey, it might surprise you just how long it would take to drop through Earth if a hole was put on either end.
The travel industry has blossomed over the last few decades. We can set up a trip to go from one side of the world to the next at the few clicks and swipes of our fingers, impressive stuff.
But despite this boom in travel, we still haven’t worked out how to take one of the most mind blowing journeys, rather than fly over the planet to the other side, simply go through it.
Admittedly there are quite a few things stopping this, being that well it is essentially impossible.
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The pressure in the Earth’s core would simply be too much for the human body to withstand, not to mention the inner core is terribly hot.
Oh, and the logistics behind building the world’s most expansive and expensive travel system probably adds a spanner in the works.
Buuuut, scientists have figured out, if we somehow managed to deal with all those issues, just how long it would take a person to travel from one side to the other.
Without getting too much into the science... because it does get pretty complicated, it is quite fascinating.
According to calculations done by those behind the HyperPhysics educational website, it would take a person roughly 42 minutes.
“Your initial acceleration would be the surface acceleration of gravity but the acceleration would be progressively smaller as you approached the center," the page stated.
"Your weight would be zero as you flew through the center of the Earth."
It went on: "For our hypothetical journey we will assume the Earth to be of uniform density and neglect air friction and the high temperature of this trip.
"It would cause the trans-Earth traveler to oscillate back and forth through the center of the Earth like a mass bobbing up and down on a spring."
So if you did somehow manage to make this journey, you better grab on when you reach the other end or can expect to find yourself falling back towards the centre of the planet before whooshing back up the other side.
"The traveler would pop up on the opposite side of the Earth after a little more than 42 minutes," HyperPhysics concluded.
"But unless he or she grabs something to hold on, they will fall back for a return journey and continue to oscillate with a round-trip time of 84.5 minutes."