What sank the Titanic? Scientists blame the moon
SAN ANTONIO— A century after the Titanic disaster, scientists have found an unexpected culprit for the sinking: the moon.
Anyone who knows history or has seen the blockbuster movies knows that the cause of the transatlantic liner’s accident 100 years ago next month was that it hit an iceberg.
Ever since the Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, killing 1,517 people, researchers have puzzled over Captain Edward Smith’s seeming disregard of warnings that icebergs were in the area. But he had no reason at the time to believe that the icebergs he was facing were as numerous or as large as they turned out to be, said Donald Olson, a Texas State University physicist whose team of forensic astronomers examined the moon’s role. Greenland icebergs of the type that the Titanic struck generally become stuck in the shallow waters off Labrador and Newfoundland, and cannot move southward until they have melted enough to refloat or a high tide frees them. But a “once-in-many-lifetimes” event had occurred on Jan. 4, 1912, that may have created such a tide. The moon was the closest it had been to Earth in 1,400 years. On top of that, the Earth’s closest approach to the sun in a year had happened just the previous day.