So Near, and Yet So Far
These original Kirt's Cogitations™ may be reproduced
(no more than 5, please) provided proper credit is given to me, Kirt Blattenberger.
here to return to the Table of Contents.
Cog·i·ta·tion [koj-i-tey'-shun] – noun: Concerted
reflection; meditation; contemplation.
Kirt [kert] – proper noun: RF Cafe webmaster.
We can directly
observe the composition of the rings of Saturn - 850 million miles away
- but we still can't figure out what lies at the center of our Earth
- a mere 4,000 miles away! Traditional theory suggests it is a solid
core of nickel-iron, surrounded by a liquid region of iron, nickel,
and a mix of sulfur, oxygen and silicon. A more avant-garde postulate
claims a literal nuclear reactor core of uranium and plutonium, surrounded
by a molten core of iron, sulfur and silicon. Both dynamo models account
handily for the Earth's magnetic field - including the cyclic variations.
The greatest hole ever drilled, on Russia's Kola Peninsula, is only
7.5 miles deep, or less than 0.2% of the way to the center. In geophysicist
Herndon's words, "That's roughly comparable to learning about Alaska
by driving from St. Petersburg, FL to Tampa."