A new study has revealed that a large underwater volcano eruption early last year created a powerful shock wave of plasma bubbles powerful enough to disrupt radio communications in space.
Tonga volcano, a large, cone-shaped undersea volcano, erupted with tremendous force in January 2022. The eruption produced huge, record-breaking volcanic fumes, and one of them reached an altitude of more than 55 kilometers, Space.com reported. The eruption also triggered a series of ocean-wide tsunamis that reached as far as the Caribbean. Reports suggesting that it rivaled the power of a large US nuclear bomb, it was the most powerful natural explosion in over a century.
While previous research on the 2022 Tonga volcano eruption found that the eruption created atmospheric waves strong enough to disturb the ionosphere, this new research shows how far these waves reach and how much damage they do to satellite signals orbiting our planet.
It has long been speculated that powerful volcanic eruptions and other volcanic activity could disrupt the F-zone of the ionosphere. This region of the atmosphere contains the highest concentration of ions found in the atmosphere. When Tonga volcano erupted last year, the eruption was so powerful that it created “equatorial plasma bubbles” in the ionosphere, basically creating holes that GPS and communication signals couldn’t pass through.
With this new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers showed that eruptions such as the 2022 Tonga volcano eruption can create these bubbles in the atmosphere, as well as show that these bubbles can even reach an altitude of more than 2,000 kilometers.
In addition, the scientists discovered that the explosion caused a sudden increase in electron density and an increase in the height of the ionosphere, occurring hours before the first shock wave hit. They believe this rapid response may be due to atmospheric waves generated by the explosion interacting with electrically charged ions in the ionosphere.
So it’s possible that the 2022 Tonga eruption caused a disruption to GPS and even communications signals, something we’re used to seeing from solar flares.
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