Editing 2058: Rock Wall
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In this comic, [[Ponytail]], talking to [[Megan]], is describing her job as a mantle geologist as that of living on one side of a thick wall that is, and likely always will be, impossible to get around, but she has to study what is on the other side of the wall. In this case the wall is horizontal rather than vertical, the wall being the earth's crust, and makes a complete sphere, so the only way to get past the wall would be to go through. It is theoretically possible to go through, but as of the comic's posting, humanity is far from doing so. (The deepest hole dug as of at that time, as measured by {{w|true vertical depth}}, is the {{w|Kola_Superdeep_Borehole|Kola Borehole}}, which only goes down to 12,262 meters out of the estimated 35,000 meters needed to get through at that location.) | In this comic, [[Ponytail]], talking to [[Megan]], is describing her job as a mantle geologist as that of living on one side of a thick wall that is, and likely always will be, impossible to get around, but she has to study what is on the other side of the wall. In this case the wall is horizontal rather than vertical, the wall being the earth's crust, and makes a complete sphere, so the only way to get past the wall would be to go through. It is theoretically possible to go through, but as of the comic's posting, humanity is far from doing so. (The deepest hole dug as of at that time, as measured by {{w|true vertical depth}}, is the {{w|Kola_Superdeep_Borehole|Kola Borehole}}, which only goes down to 12,262 meters out of the estimated 35,000 meters needed to get through at that location.) | ||
| − | In the title text [[Randall]] states that he doesn't trust mantle/core geologists. Because if they got the chance he believes they would not hesitate (even | + | In the title text [[Randall]] states that he doesn't trust mantle/core geologists. Because if they got the chance he believes they would not hesitate (even a heart beat) in stripping away Earth's crust to study the mantle or even worse the {{w|Inner core|core}} directly. Of course if they only did this locally to look at the mantle it would not shatter the Earth although that local area may become a volcano. But if they actually peeled the entire outer layer away, we humans would have no place to live, as the mantle is really hot and would melt easily (producing magmas and therefore lavas when magma’s exposed to surface, see title text of [[1405: Meteor]] to be more confused). However, after a while all these erupted lavas would solidify and become a new crust. Humanity needs to withstand just some millennia of active worldwide volcanism. |
But Randall is afraid that their craving to get around that 20 mile wall would prevent the researchers from even hesitating if they did get that chance. Fortunately, we can study planetary cores in the solar system without stripping Earth's surface by visiting an asteroid which is thought to be the exposed iron core of a protoplanet. The {{w|Psyche (spacecraft)| Psyche mission}} launched in 2023 and is scheduled to arrive at {{w|16 Psyche}} in 2029. | But Randall is afraid that their craving to get around that 20 mile wall would prevent the researchers from even hesitating if they did get that chance. Fortunately, we can study planetary cores in the solar system without stripping Earth's surface by visiting an asteroid which is thought to be the exposed iron core of a protoplanet. The {{w|Psyche (spacecraft)| Psyche mission}} launched in 2023 and is scheduled to arrive at {{w|16 Psyche}} in 2029. | ||
