The Moon sank the Titanic (global warming too)
ACCORDING to the boffins – Donald Olson and Russell Doescher – of the Texas State University-San Marcos, the moon caused the Titanic to sink. The report in Sky & Telescope, states:
One question, however, has often been overlooked: Where did the killer iceberg come from, and could the moon have helped set the stage for disaster?
Says Olson:
“Of course, the ultimate cause of the accident was that the ship struck an iceberg. The Titanic failed to slow down, even after having received several wireless messages warning of ice ahead. They went full speed into a region with icebergs—that’s really what sank the ship, but the lunar connection may explain how an unusually large number of icebergs got into the path of the Titanic.”
On Jan. 4, 1912, the moon passed close to the Earth. The tide was high. Olson adds:
“It was the closest approach of the moon to the Earth in more than 1,400 years, and this configuration maximized the moon’s tide-raising forces on Earth’s oceans. That’s remarkable. The full moon could be any time of the month. The perigee could be any time of the month. Think of how many minutes there are in a month.”
Did the big tides trigger more ice to break off Greenland? The thinking is that high tides allowed icebergs that often get stuck in shallow waters – they need to melt a bit to move on – to sail on. So. There were more iceberg than usual moving out at sea.
“As icebergs travel south, they often drift into shallow water and pause along the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. But an extremely high spring tide could refloat them, and the ebb tide would carry them back out into the Labrador Current where the icebergs would resume drifting southward. That could explain the abundant icebergs in the spring of 1912. We don’t claim to know exactly where the Titanic iceberg was in January 1912—nobody can know that–but this is a plausible scenario intended to be scientifically reasonable.”
Of course, if it occurred now, global warming would be to blame. The question si whether this new evidence will form part of Julian Fellowes’ new Titanic and tiaras TV show. Maybe Iceberg can be one of his ethnic characters…
Posted: 7th, March 2012 | In: Technology Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
