Check this out, a Google Maps mashup called Map Tunneling that answers an eternal childhood question: if you dug a hole in your backyard that was so deep it went through to the other side, where would end up?

In our case: in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Bummer. Considering 78% of the earth is water most people would end up with a gigantic pool. And here I thought all holes in my backyard led to China! My childhood dreams are crushed.

Note to purists readers: I realize it’s extremely unlikely one would ever be able to dig through to the other side of the earth. Or at least we don’t have any tools on earth capable of such a feat, see this explanation:

Well, first .. we can’t! Forget the fact that we have a mostly molten core … we have barely gone a few miles down into the crust! Plus, the physics we are going to talk about here won’t work with a rotating Earth (or at least not the way we plan to analyze it).

But hey, it’s kind of cool to know what’s under our feet. In our case and 78% of the rest of the world the answer is a whole lot of water. Guess a Google mashup wasn’t needed to tell me that. I’d be curious to hear from readers who actually have land on the other side of them.

To use the map, just adjust the left map to where you are at and the right map will show the other side.

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