An analysis of recently declassified U.S. military document substantiate suspicion that , during the tardy stages of the Vietnam War , a powerful solar violent storm caused dozens of sea mines to explode . It ’s a bare reminder of the Sun ’s potential to disrupt our technological activities in unexpected room .
As part of Operation Pocket Money , the U.S. Navy planted a series ofDestructor sea minesnear strategic larboard off the coast of North Vietnam . A few week later , on August 4 , 1972 , crew appendage aboard U.S. Task Force 77 aircraft suddenly observed a batch of explosions south of Hai Phong . In all , some 20 to 30 plosion were documented in just 30 seconds . Another 25 to 30 patches of muddy water system were also observed , suggestive of further explosions .
It was a outlandish occurrence , as there was no reason why the mines should have gone off . Almost immediately , U.S. officials began to contemplate extreme solar bodily process as the drive , as revealed innewly declassifiedU.S. Navy text file . Newresearchpublished last calendar month in Space Weather , a publishing of the American Geophysical Union , agrees with this 46 - class - old assessment , while providing new particular about this peculiarly nasty solar violent storm , which interrupt more than just naval mines . The study ’s authors , led by Delores Knipp from the University of Colorado and Brian Fraser from the National Center for Atmospheric Research , Boulder , say the historic consequence should serve well as a call to natural process .
The bombs that explode weremagnetic sea mine , a artillery that dates back to the First World War . When a ship passes above , the mine smell a modification to the charismatic field density , triggering a detonation . Within days of the August 1972 incident , U.S. military official began to question if solar body process might have been creditworthy for the unlooked-for mine explosion .
As RMIT senior lecturer Brett Carterreportsin The Conversation , scientists in the seventies were already aware of the Sun ’s potential to trigger magnetised field change — they just were n’t sure if it was unattackable enough to induce the mine into detonate . As part of its investigation , the U.S. armed forces sent officials to the Space Environment Laboratory at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) near Boulder , Colorado . After consulting with scientists , the researcher concluded with a “ high level of probability ” that solar violent storm activity was responsible for the seemingly spontaneous destruction of the charismatic mine .
Buried for virtually 50 year , these now declassified document were re - analyzed by the Knipp and Fraser team . Indeed , August 1972 see an acute point of solar activity — some of the strong ever recorded .
Between August 2 and 4 , macula realm MR 11976 shot out a series of solar flair , coronal mass ejections , and cloud of charged particles ( which were called “ plasma drivers ” back in the 1970s ) . The coronal mass ejection that caused the ocean mines to explode achieve Earth in just 14.6 hours — a record for such an event ( it normally takes a full day or two for these electromagnetic pulses to reach our satellite ’s geomagnetic force field and produce magnetic storms ) . The reason for the pep pill , the source say , is that two anterior heartbeat from the Sun on August 2 elucidate the path to our major planet , resulting in the “ ultra - libertine ” tidy sum ejection on August 4 . In addition to the detonation of the mines , the solar violent storm caused business leader gap and telegraphy line outages , as Carter report .
“ base on the evidence present , we pass on that the 26 December 2024 event was a Carrington - class tempest , ” the author drop a line in the discipline . “ The transportation system time for this effect was shorter than the Carrington event . ”
https://gizmodo.com/a-monster-solar-storm-could-cost-the-us-40-billion-dai-1791379797
By Carrington event , the investigator are refer to a sinewy geomagnetic solar storm that happen in 1859 . It stay one of the most sinewy solar storms on phonograph recording . A interchangeable event today would make severe disruptions , knocking out satellites , mightiness grids , and , as the new field points out , technology we do n’t even know are vulnerable .
In closing , the study authors say the 1972 storm is worthy of further scrutiny and suggest that other researchers to pool their archival entropy together in an exploit to learn more . No doubt , the more reliant we are on technology , the more vulnerable we become to these extreme solar upshot . bed as much as we can about geomagnetic storms could prevent a mass of heartache .
[ Space WeatherviaThe Conversation ]
blood plasma physicsSolar flareSolar phenomenaSolar stormSpace plasmasSpace weatherthe Sun
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