Not science fiction, but a technically feasible plan to probe our planet's inner workings.
Abstract
Planetary missions have enhanced our understanding of the Solar System and how planets work, but no comparable exploratory effort has been directed towards the Earth's interior, where equally fascinating scientific issues are waiting to be investigated. Here I propose a scheme for a mission to the Earth's core, in which a small communication probe would be conveyed in a huge volume of liquid-iron alloy migrating down to the core along a crack that is propagating under the action of gravity. The grapefruit-sized probe would transmit its findings back to the surface using high-frequency seismic waves sensed by a ground-coupled wave detector. The probe should take about a week to reach the core, and the minimum mass of molten iron required would be 108–1010 kg — or roughly between an hour and a week of Earth's total iron-foundry production.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Turcotte, D. L. & Emmerman, S. H. J. Geophys. Res. 88, B91–B96 (1983).
Schubert, G., Turcotte, D. L. & Olson, P. Mantle Convection in the Earth and Planets 166–176 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001).
Weertman, J. J. Geophys. Res. 76, 1171–1183 (1971).
Landau, L. D. & Lifshitz, E. M. Fluid Mechanics (Pergamon, London, 1959).
Anderson, D. L. & Given, J. J. Geophys. Res. 87, 3893–3904 (1982).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stevenson, D. Mission to Earth's core — a modest proposal. Nature 423, 239–240 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423239a
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/423239a
This article is cited by
-
Probing of the Interior Layers of the Earth with Self-Sinking Capsules
Atomic Energy (2005)
-
Cracking idea gets to the core
Nature (2003)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.