madsci t1_iu75nlw wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:47 AM

Reply to comment by SpaceWanderer22 in A mobile makes sound travel faster than the speed of sound by Nicebruhh

Short answer, no.

A quick Google search tells me that the lithostatic pressure in the lower mantle is something like 24 gigapascals, and the strongest high-performance concrete in the world can handle 1% of that.

And that's not even considering the temperature, which starts at around 1000 C.

SpaceWanderer22 t1_iu76a4f wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:52 AM

Plus the inner core is a 1500 mile diameter sphere of a solid iron alloy.

At some point it'll probably be possible, but I'd imagine that's pretty far future territory.

madsci t1_iu76wbb wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:57 AM

If we ever get to that point, I suspect we'll already be building planet-scale megastructures and won't have any need to be boring holes through the Earth.

SpaceWanderer22 t1_iu77hqx wrote on October 29, 2022 at 2:02 AM

Agreed, why drill a difficult hole when you could build a Dyson sphere? My main point was just considering what level of technology it would require to actually accomplish the feat.

It is possible though that some unexpected mechanism would make it more feasible than expected, and communication straight through the planet would have some serious benefits. Especially if it was a straight hole, and light was sent directly through it, without even using a fiber optic cable.