Record-breaking Tonga undersea volcano disrupted satellite signals in space
An underwater volcanic eruption last year was powerful enough to generate plasma bubbles that disrupted radio communications in outer space, a new study finds.
The new results could lead to ways to avoid satellite and GPS disruptions on Earth, and to learn more about volcanoes on alien worlds, scientists added.
In January 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano — a large, cone-shaped mountain located near the 169 islands of the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific — erupted with a violent explosion. The outburst generated the highest-ever recorded volcanic plume, one reaching 35 miles (57 kilometers) tall, and triggered tsunamis as far away as the Caribbean. All in all, the eruption was the most powerful natural explosion in more than a century, rivaling the strength of the largest U.S. nuclear bomb.
Previous research found the atmospheric waves — fluctuations in air pressure — from the eruption were powerful enough to disturb the ionosphere, one of the highest layers of Earth's atmosphere, stretching from an altitude of about 50 miles to 620 miles (80 to 1,000 km). Solar radiation energizes the molecules and atoms there to generate the electrically charged ions that give this layer its name.
