We have explored so much outside the Earth. We can predict the distant moons and stars, but how much do we know about our own planet? Not much, perhaps. We don’t know what kind of wonders or horrors await us inside the Earth’s crust. Scientists haven’t discovered more than 5% of the oceans and we don’t know what lies underneath the surface we walk on. Nature is a mystery.
Scientists decided to dig a hole about 15,000 meters below the surface of the earth but they couldn’t get past 12,262 meters due to something known as the ‘Door to Hell’.
Major part of the earth is an unexplored territory.
Even though oceans cover nearly 70% of the earth, we have only managed to discover 5% of what they all contain.
Not just the oceans, when it comes to land only less than 10% of space has been explored by man.
Efforts to look beneath the surface.
Scientists decided to dig a hole 15,000 meters below the surface level. But they could dig only till 12,262 meters.
This is Kola Superdeep Bore Hole.
It is the deepest artificially created borehole of the world. The borehole crosses the deepest point in the oceans which is 12-kilometer deep.
They had to stop the drilling.
Scientists wanted to dig down till 5,000 meters, but couldn’t dig further because of high temperatures. They had assumed the temperature would be nearly 100 degrees celsius, but the temperature at 12,262 was 180 degrees celsius. This is what they called the Door to Hell.
There have been a lot of discoveries.
Ever since scientists started digging the Kola Superdeep Borehole, many things have been found. For instance, some rocks were found to be as old as 2.5 billion years.
Gases were found as well.
Along with natural gas, other gases like helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, and even carbon dioxide was found beneath the surface of the earth.
Surprisingly no Basalt was there.
One more discovery was made.
Until the borehole was dug, scientists used to believe that the distance from the surface to the centre of the earth was nearly 6,400 kilometers. But with this, they found out that they’re nowhere close to it.
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