Solar Flare Activity Could Have Contributed To The Titanic Sinking

A new paper has been published concerning the iconic and tragic wreck of the Titanic. The research paper speculates that the solar flare activity could have contributed to the massive ship's sinking. The Titanic sunk on April 14, 1912, and the new study has found that the northern hemisphere was being hit by a moderate to severe magnetic storm on the very night the ship sank.The paper speculates the magnetic storm could've altered the Titanic's navigational readings impacting its planned course and the information the crew shared about its location after sending SOS signals. Solar flare activity and magnetic storms can impact electronics today, but today we have the technology to know when solar activity could impact life here on earth.

In only a matter of minutes, sunspots can heat the material to millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT. The explosions caused magnetic ripples throughout the solar system. Humans are protected from these storms thanks to the year's magnetic field, but storms can impact navigational systems used by aircraft and ships. The storms can even interrupt the ability of animals to navigate.

One indication that the solar storm was severe enough to have impacted navigational equipment used in the day was a visible aurora borealis on the night the ship sank. The paper also speculates that the impact to navigational instruments, such as the compass, affected the coordinates reported in distress signals accounting for the ship being 13 nautical miles from the position reported in its SOS.

The ship that rescued many of the Titanic survivors, the Carpathia, was likely suffering from the same geomagnetic storm for five and a half hours both before and after receiving the Titanic's SOS call. Another item pointed to as evidence of a magnetic storm is that ships within a certain radius received scrambled radio calls or didn't receive them altogether.