Showing posts with label iceberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iceberg. Show all posts

April 15, 2012

Titanic possibilities

Did you see this image today at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site? It's a photograph of a Fata Morgana, an illusion that is sometimes seen on the sea. (That wall of water in the background is the illusion.)

According to NASA, a Fata Morgana can: 
"make strange shapes or a false wall of water appear above a watery horizon . . . [S]uch a Fata Morgana mirage might have obscured real icebergs from the clear view of crew onboard the Titanic."
This notion is supported by a report from a nearby vessel, the S.S. Californian, that said they saw just such a mirage. Even a hundred years later, the story of the Titanic's ill-fated voyage remains haunting. I will always be fascinated by the Titanic. It stands alone (if we can keep that damn Cameron fellow away from it).