can our planet be x-ray'd?

Question

since we can preform x rays on humans and other objects,
could we x ray the planet to see what lays within??

Answer 1

A good question. Almost everything we know about the deep interior of the Earth has been learned from earthquake shock waves, which can travel right through the Earth and can be detected on the opposite side. For instance, we know that there's an outer liquid core and an inner solid core because transverse shock waves (which wiggle from side to side like wiggling a rope), are stopped by a liquid; they can only travel through solids, but longitudinal earthquake shock waves (which vibrate to and fro in the same direction they're travelling), can pass through liquids and gases, just like sound waves. Looking into the future, the only other things we know anything about which could penetrate the Earth are tiny particles called neutrinos and gravitational radiation. We've already got neutrino observatories to study neutrinos from outer space. They detect neutrinos from below, which have passed right through the Earth, as well as those from the sky.

Answer 2

Yes, just like we can X-ray the surface of the Sun, but only the X-rays detectable coming from earth's van Allen Belt or upper atmosphere! X-rays will not penetrate, but a few centimeters into the earth's soil, so it would be impossible to X-ray and see right through the earth, as you would a normal chest X-ray! Sorry . . .

Answer 3

X-rays only penetrate a few feet through earth. They can use seismic waves from earthquakes or explosions to see into the earth. Some radar does penetrate pretty far in some cases but not through a whole planet.