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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, 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...