A giant solar flare blew up mines during the Vietnam War



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Research has confirmed that magnetic radiation from giant solar storms has caused the sudden and almost instantaneous detonation of dozens of marine mines in Vietnam.

At the time of the mysterious explosions, the US Navy attributed to the event "magnetic disturbances of solar storms" – an award that scientists at the University of Colorado have confirmed.

In their article published in Space Weather, the team found that the mine detonations – as well as the widespread disruption of communication and power networks observed in North America – were due to a huge solar flare that directed towards the Earth.

Explosion of American napalm bombs in fields south of Saigon during the Vietnam War. The napalm kills by asphyxiation and by fire and was used for the first time by the United States against Japan during the Second World War. (Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
Picture:
Dozens of mines exploded mysteriously towards the end of the Vietnam War. Photo of a napalm bomb archive

Towards the end of the Vietnam War in 1972, the US military deployed 11,000 marine mines south of Hai Phong, in northern Vietnam, to block essential naval supply routes to Vietcong and other areas. the regular army of North Vietnam.

However, on August 4, a few months after these marine mines were sewn into these waters, dozens of them apparently exploded spontaneously and almost instantly.

A research team led by Dr. Delores Knipp has written that the solar storm "deserves a new scientific visit as a big challenge for the space weather community, as it provides terrestrial observations of a space age of what which was probably a Carrington class storm. "

The Carrington event would be the largest solar storm ever recorded, which touched the Earth in 1859.

It left a visible aurora in the sky, even at latitudes very close to the equator, and was described in contemporary reports as even brighter than the light of a full moon.

This has caused the failure of telegraph systems throughout Europe and North America, and a similar storm today could cause billions of dollars in damage worldwide.

The 1972 storm "corresponds to the description of a Carrington-class storm minus the low-latitude aurora," the researchers wrote.

Last year, two "major" solar flares were projected, one of which was the most powerful eruptions recorded since 2008.

Space weather phenomena have become an increasingly important topic of study for scientists, as humanity is increasingly dependent on electrical grids and satellites that are highly exposed to radiation.

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