Donald F. Argus

Where is the centre of the Earth

The characters in Jules Vernes science-fiction classic of 1864 A Journey to the Centre of the Earth encounter raging waters, erupting volcanoes and giant dinosaurs as they travel deep underground. In truth, even if someone managed to cross our planets molten core, which begins halfway down from the Earths surface, the centre of the planet is so hot – more than 3000°C – that our intrepid traveller would burn up before they reached there. Thank goodness that we do not actually need to go to the centre of the Earth to work out where it is or how fast it is moving.