What Would Happen If You Could Fall Through Earth?

If you could fall straight through Earth, you’d zoom around inside it like a kid on a slide.

Imagine you’re at the top of a really long slide, so long it goes all the way to the other side of the planet! You jump in, and whoosh, you start sliding down, faster and faster, until you're halfway through Earth. Then, just like when you reach the bottom of your slide and bounce back up, you’d start going the other way, flying up toward the top of Earth again.

It would feel a little like riding on a swing, going down, then up, then down again, but much faster! You'd be pulled by gravity at first, but as you go deeper into Earth, it would start pulling less and less, until you're floating in the middle. Then you’d zoom back up to the other side, just like when you swing past the top of your swing set.

If there was no air or friction slowing you down, you could go from one side of Earth to the other in about 45 minutes, and then keep going all the way back!