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Mission to Earth's core―a modest proposal

机译:对地球核心的使命-一个适度的建议

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摘要

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 10~8-10~(10)kg ―or roughly between an hour and a week of Earth's total iron-foundry production. We live on the Earth's surface, which divides what is above from what is below (Fig. 1). The part above us (the rest of the Universe) is mostly empty, mostly unknown and about 10~(57) times larger by volume. The part below is crammed with interesting stuff and is also mostly unknown, despite its much greater proximity to us. Space probes have so far reached a distance of about 40 astronomical units (6 x 10~9 km), but subterranean probes (drill holes) have descended only some 10 km into the Earth.
机译:行星任务增强了我们对太阳系以及行星如何工作的理解,但是还没有针对地球内部进行类似的探索性工作,在地球内部同样令人着迷的科学问题正在等待调查。在这里,我提出了一个对地球核心进行任务的计划,其中,一个小型通信探针将被运送到大量的液态铁合金中,这些液态铁合金沿着在重力作用下传播的裂缝向下迁移到核心。葡萄柚大小的探测器将利用地面耦合波检测器感应到的高频地震波将其发现结果传回地面。探针需要大约一周的时间才能到达堆芯,所需的最低铁水质量为10〜8-10〜(10)kg-大约是地球铸铁总产量的一小时至一周。我们生活在地球表面,地球表面将上面的东西与下面的东西分开(图1)。我们上方的那部分(宇宙的其余部分)大部分是空的,大部分是未知的,体积大约是其10到(57)倍。下面的部分充满了有趣的内容,尽管与我们的距离更近,但大部分还是未知的。迄今为止,太空探测器已达到约40个天文单位(6 x 10〜9 km)的距离,但是地下探测器(钻孔)仅下降到地球约10 km。

著录项

  • 来源
    《Nature》 |2003年第6937期|p.239-240|共2页
  • 作者

    David J. Stevenson;

  • 作者单位

    California Institute of Technology, Pasadena California 91125, USA;

  • 收录信息 美国《科学引文索引》(SCI);美国《工程索引》(EI);美国《生物学医学文摘》(MEDLINE);美国《化学文摘》(CA);
  • 原文格式 PDF
  • 正文语种 eng
  • 中图分类 自然科学总论;
  • 关键词

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