The whole meaning of life is to endlessly explore what is not yet known, and to constantly add more knowledge.

Qu Yuan said in "Li Sao", "The road is long and long, and I will search up and down." Life is a journey of continuous exploration. The process of rolling forward in the rut of history is also the process of human beings. Sound the clarion call to advance into unknown territory.

The soil brought back from the moon by Chang'e 5 has excited the Chinese people. The Chinese people have finally taken a crucial step towards the distant starry sky through their own efforts. From the thousands of years of mythical stories about flying to the moon, they have gradually moved towards reality.

People's curiosity about the starry sky drives us to keep moving forward, but the fighting nations neighboring us seem to be more willing to "go against" all mankind.

When all the eyes of the world were focused on the United States' lunar exploration in the last century, they launched a challenge to the earth where humans live and embarked on a journey of exploration into the depths of the earth.

01 A fighting nation unwilling to be left alone

As we all know, the Soviet Union, known as the "Polar Bear", occupied northern China in the 1960s and 1970s. As the communist camp, Big Brother has been competing with capitalist countries led by the United States in all aspects. Whether it is the military, economic or scientific research fields, in short, all fields that humans can touch are the battlefields for their competition.

In the late 1960s, the U.S.-led space exploration program was proceeding in an orderly manner. When Armstrong stood on the surface of the moon, it caused a sensation around the world.

"This is a small step for me, a giant step for all mankind." has become a famous saying that will never fade, inspiring all mankind to continue to move forward into the depths of space.

The United States took the lead in landing on the moon, which aroused dissatisfaction among the Soviets. As a fighting nation, their failure to land on the moon before the Americans seemed to be a shame for them, and it also made the big brother of communism I felt a little angry, feeling that this was not only a failure of the Soviet Union, but also a failure of the entire socialist camp. The Soviet Union, which suddenly lost attention, was somewhat eclipsed in front of the world.

Since we cannot compete with the United States in the sky, we must compete with the United States underground. The Soviet Union thought of the "Moho Project" launched by the United States in the late 1950s.

The "Moho Project" is the first human exploration into the depths of the earth. The United States once planned to explore the secrets in the mantle by drilling through the earth's crust. However, due to technical limitations at the time, this plan required a large amount of funding.

The U.S. Congress, which was in the midst of a Cold War with the Soviet Union, would never spend a penny on such a plan that might achieve nothing. After several quarrels, Congress finally rejected the plan, and the "Moho Project", which only drilled less than 400 meters on the seabed below 1,000 meters, died.

The Soviet Union seemed to see the significance of this plan if it could succeed, so it launched an exploration into the depths of the earth shortly after the return of the Apollo. The Soviets believed that as long as they persevered and persisted to the end, they would achieve world-shaking gains.

02 The ambition to drill into the center of the earth

The efficiency of the Soviets is definitely commendable. When this plan to explore the "center of the earth" was proposed, they quickly implemented it action.

In a desolate basin, the Soviets erected dozens of drilling wells and launched an attack toward the center of the earth. In order to make this plan proceed smoothly, the Soviet government also gathered a large number of scientists and professional talents here, and built apartments and laboratories for them to study the drilled soil and rocks.

Every time you go one meter deeper into the ground, you will encounter harder soil. When you reach a certain depth, you will encounter harder rocks. As the rocks become harder and harder, the temperature becomes higher and higher.

The drilling required is becoming more and more sophisticated and more expensive, followed by a gradual increase in costs.

But in order to ensure that this plan can proceed smoothly, the Soviet Union does not seem to care about the cost issue. After ten years of drilling day and night, except for the discovery of some rocks that cannot be seen on the ground, there is almost no other harvest.

The perseverance and patience of the Soviet people are worth learning from. Finding nothing in ten years does not mean that there are no bigger secrets underground. They firmly believe that there must be something unusual underground, but they just haven't dug deep enough.

When the drilling reached nearly 10,000 meters, this geocentric plan that had been going on for ten years finally made substantial progress. They discovered a delightful secret in the rocks drilled through the belt.

After careful analysis, there is a large amount of gold hidden under 10,000 meters. In terms of commercial properties, if each ton of ore contains 4g of gold, it is worth mining, but the rocks under 10,000 meters There is actually 80g of gold in each ton. This is the secret discovered by the Soviet Union.

The drilling platform that was still in operation in 1983 continued to work its way deep into the earth, and by this time it had penetrated more than 12,000 meters underground.

Harder rocks and higher and higher temperatures place higher and higher demands on drill bits, and the costs are increasing. Every meter down is expensive, which is a huge challenge for the Soviet Union, which is already experiencing economic decline.

No one except the parties involved knows whether this plan is going smoothly. It's just that in the next ten years, it only went down 262 meters.

Some people say that the rock is too hard, and the drilling technology mastered by the Soviet Union at that time could no longer meet the requirements of underground rock formations. The Soviet government admitted generously that the plan could not proceed due to funding issues.

It is this 262-meter descent that has caused countless people to speculate wildly and make up ridiculous stories.

03 Exciting conjectures

Although Russia's economy had a brief recovery after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it could not resist the downward trend.

This scientific research project that cost countless funds but yielded no results has stopped and stayed in the depths of 12262, but its story is not over yet, and various kinds of problems have emerged. Inferred, there are two most fascinating stories among them.

One is about the monster in the center of the earth. Some people say that when drilling to this location, a terrifying creature flew out from deep underground. It not only had a pair of strange wings, but also A frightening face suddenly flew out from the depths like a green-faced and fanged monster, letting out a terrifying roar. This has to put the drilling project on hold to prevent unknown creatures from appearing and harming the world.

The other is the even more ridiculous saying "Gate to Hell". The story says that when the drilling reached this depth, a creepy sound suddenly came from the underground, and screams reached the ears of the scientific researchers.

It's like the sound in the book describing hell. They believed that they had opened the door to hell, so they did not dare to explore further and could only stagnate.

The former story can be heard as a science fiction story, while the latter one makes people laugh or cry.

Is this challenging human ignorance, or treating everyone as fools?

Humanity’s research on the center of the earth is no longer a day or two. Even if there is hell, it is another space in a parallel universe. How could it appear underground?

However, despite such a deceptive trick, some people still promote it as a real-life event.

Humanity has never stopped exploring unknown territories. I think one day the true secrets of the Earth's core will eventually be revealed.