ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Chikyū Hakken

Okay kiddo, have you ever heard of dinosaurs? Well, a long, long time ago, there were some really big animals that lived on the Earth called dinosaurs. But now they're all gone. Scientists who study the Earth, called geologists, want to know more about these dinosaurs and what the Earth was like back then.

To do this, they need to take a really big rock sample from the Earth's crust, which is called drilling. But they can't just drill anywhere because they need to find the right spot where they can get the most information about the Earth's history. That's where chikyū hakken comes in - it means "Earth discovery" in Japanese.

Chikyū hakken is a super high-tech drilling ship that travels all around the world looking for the best spot to drill. It has a very long drill that can go deep into the Earth's crust to get the rock samples that scientists need to do their research.

Once chikyū hakken finds the perfect spot, scientists can collect the rock samples and study them in a lab to learn more about the Earth's history. They can figure out things like what the climate was like, what kind of plants and animals lived back then, and even why the dinosaurs went extinct.

So, in a nutshell, chikyū hakken is a really cool ship that helps scientists explore and discover more about the Earth's past by drilling deep into the rocks.