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An aurora that lit up the sky over the Titanic might explain why it sank:
Glowing auroras shimmered in skies over the northern Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 — the night the RMS Titanic sank. Now, new research hints that the geomagnetic storm behind the northern lights could have disrupted the ship's navigation and communication systems and hindered rescue efforts, fueling the disaster that killed more than 1,500 passengers.
Eyewitnesses described aurora glows in the region as the Titanic went down, with one observer testifying that "the northern lights were very strong that night," Mila Zinkova, an independent weather researcher and photographer, reported in a new study, published online Aug. 4 in the journal Weather.
[...] Auroras form from solar storms, when the sun expels high-speed streams of electrified gas that hurtle toward Earth. As the charged particles and energy collide with Earth's atmosphere, some travel down magnetic field lines to interact with atmospheric gases, glowing green, red, purple and blue, NASA says. These charged particles can also interfere with electrical and magnetic signals, causing surges and oscillations, according to NASA.
[...] And the northern lights were highly visible when the Titanic sank.
[...] At the same time that the solar storm's charged particles were generating a pretty light show, they could also have been tugging at the Titanic's compass. A deviation of only 0.5 degrees would have been enough to steer the ship away from safety and place it on its fatal collision course toward an iceberg, Zinkova said in the study.
"This apparently insignificant error could have made the difference between colliding with the iceberg and avoiding it," she wrote.
[...] Radio signals that night were also "freaky," operators on the ocean liner RMS Baltic reported (the Baltic was one of the ships that responded to the Titanic's distress call, but the RMS Carpathia got there first, according to the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University in Waco, Texas). SOS signals sent by the Titanic to nearby ships went unheard, and responses to the Titanic were never received, according to Zinkova.
Journal Reference:
Mila Zinkova. RMetS Journals, Weather (DOI: 10.1002/wea.3817)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:24PM (16 children)
Really? Being blinded by the pretty lights made them ram into the giant iceberg? The Titanic tales are starting, and have been for some time, to sound a tad farfetched.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:36PM
To change the movie game FOREVER.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:39PM
I also have a hard time understanding how lights in the sky would have hidden the iceberg. Of all the accounts I have read, the one that makes most sense is, there was no lookout on the weather deck. The lookouts were posted on the bridge and higher. People looking down into a dark sea aren't going to see a block of dirty ice. A lookout nearer the waterline may have seen that block of ice in silhouette against the slightly brighter sky.
When all is said and done, the ship's design ensured that she would sink after being holed where it was holed. The water tight bulkheads did not all extend up to the weatherdeck. That was the failure that doomed the ship to sinking.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:47PM (12 children)
The Titanic tales are bloody endless, ever since James Cameron made that terrible movie about it, with Kate Whatsername and that annoying bloke.
When stories like that nonsense start appearing again I assume Cameron has something to sell.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday September 27 2020, @10:22PM (10 children)
Yeah, saw that 'movie' at the drive-in because my wife and daughter wanted to see it: the first half sucked completely and the spitting scene was the worst acting i've ever seen.
The second half was okay, what with the running and screaming and dying...
Not a Dicrapio fan AT ALL.
Now he'll probably want to re-shoot it with an aurora......
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Troll) by claywar on Sunday September 27 2020, @11:31PM (6 children)
You've probably blocked this from memory; but if you think that was bad, travel in a wayback machine to 1996 and watch Leo ruin Shakespeare!
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 27 2020, @11:48PM (4 children)
At least the source material for that was great.
Titanic is a movie about two horrible people meeting on a ship full of arseholes, and then it sinks.
You're welcome, now you don't have to watch it.
Oh, and the bloke dies at the end and that is the good news, because no sequel.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday September 28 2020, @12:40AM (3 children)
A more concise summary:
Yeah, I think that covers it pretty well.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday September 28 2020, @01:07AM (2 children)
you forgot " and it takes three hours, but feels like seven"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday September 28 2020, @01:12AM (1 child)
Only seven? I went to a 7pm performance and after it had been running for about three hours looked at my watch and it was 7:20.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @01:45AM
I went with a group and part way through, went for a walk - about 15 guys were lurking in the foyer, all asking "has it sunk yet?"
Only thing worse than the movie with that song by Celine Dionandonandonandonn...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 28 2020, @10:22AM
Never saw it...thanking Dog.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 27 2020, @11:44PM (1 child)
Don't you put ideas in his head. If he wants to reshoot it, he'll make the taxpayers of New Zealand pay for the stupid thing. And we will, because "jobs".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @01:33AM
In a trilogy with pretentious names reflecting the aura.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Monday September 28 2020, @12:37AM
If you want a good film about it, try "A Night to Remember". "Titanic" is pure drivel in comparison.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday September 28 2020, @12:34AM
What's the Titanic equivalent of the existing "pyramidiot"? Sounds like we need an equivalent term for this field.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday September 28 2020, @04:27PM
Or, if you'd read the summary . . .
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"