Did the Moon Help to Sink the Titanic?

New studies have shed a new light on what may have contributed to sinking the Titanic. The Titanic sank in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912 with a loss of 1,517 lives. For years researchers have been stymied by the fact that the Captain of the vessel, Captain Edward Smith seemed to disregard warnings that icebergs were in the area of the ship. The Captain had sailed the North Atlantic for a number of years and was considered to be a knowledgeable seaman.

A team of researchers from Texas State University recently looked into the work of the oceanographer Fergus Wood. Wood had theorized that because of an unusually close pass by the moon in January 1912, high tides may have caused a higher than normal number of ice bergs to cleave off from Greenland, and float into shipping lanes that had been moved south that spring due to reports of icebergs. Normally the type of iceberg that sunk the Titanic would have been stuck in shallower waters off of Newfoundland and Labrador and would not have resumed moving until they had melted enough or the tides were high enough to free them. During the event on January 4 1912 the moons approach was the closest it had been in 1,400 years and that approach happened within six minutes of the full moon. The sun and moon were lined up in such a way as to enhance each other due to their gravitational pulls. The closest approach of the sun had happened just the day before. The research shows that Captain Smith would have had no reason to think the icebergs would be so numerous or large.