Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 20 July 2018
Clues to Confederate mystery:

Sub's crew never dumped weight

By JEFFREY COLLINS
Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Sci-
entists studying the world's
first submarine to sink an en-
emy ship said Wednesday
that the doomed Confed-
erate crew did not release
an emergency mechanism
that could have helped
the vessel surface quickly. This illustration provided by NASA depicts debris surrounding the
The 1,000 pounds (454 kilo- star RW Aur A, about 450 light-years away from the Earth.
grams) of what are called Associated Press
keel blocks would typi-
cally keep the H.L. Hunley Astronomers spy
upright, but also could be
released with three levers, nearby star that could
allowing the sub to surface
quickly in an emergency,
said archaeologist Michael be chomping a planet
Scafuri, who has worked on
the submarine for 18 years. In this May 1, 2014 file photo, the Confederate submarine H.L.
Scientists who removed Hunley sits in a conservation tank at a lab in North Charleston, By SETH BORENSTEIN star that's changed its iron
the century of corrosion, S.C. AP Science Writer abundance like that," he
silt and shells from the sub- Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — As- said.
marine found the levers all tronomers may have Guenther said one po-
locked in their regular posi- to make their journey back just 40 feet (12-meters) caught a relatively nearby tential simple explanation
tion, Scafuri said. to land easier and ran out long and so small the men star munching on a planet is that the star is eating a
"It's more evidence there of oxygen or got stuck. couldn't stand up straight or mini-planets. planet or mini-planets. He
wasn't much of a panic on But there are other theo- as they turned the crank- A NASA space telescope looked at other possible ex-
board," Scafuri said. ries such as the Housatonic shaft. noticed that the star sud- planations, and of the two
The Hunley and its eight explosion knocking out the "Can I promise that? No," denly started looking a that make sense, he pre-
crewmembers disap- Hunley's crew or a ship that Scafuri said. bit strange last year. The fers the planet-munching
peared in February 1864 sped to help save some of The next step for scientists Chandra X-Ray Observa- one. Computer simulations
in Charleston Harbor short- the crew on the Union ship is to remove more of the tory spotted a 30-fold in- show it can happen, but it
ly after signaling it had clipping the Confederate corrosion, slit and other crease in iron on the edge has never been seen be-
placed explosives on the sub and crippling it as it material collected on the of the star, which is only 10 fore, he said.
hull of the Union ship the tried to dive. hull. Over 18 years, Scafuri million years old, along with Outside experts are wary.
USS Housatonic. Those theories can't be said they have uncovered pronounced dimming. "This could be an excit-
Ever since the Hunley was ruled out — at least not nearly a dozen artifacts , Astronomers have been ing discovery, but the evi-
raised from the ocean yet and maybe never, said reconstructed the faces watching the baby star — dence is circumstantial
floor in 2000, scientists have Scafuri, who planned to of the crew members and in the constellation Taurus and not definitive," said
worked to determine why work on the Hunley mys- gained more knowledge — for decades and iron Harvard's Avi Loeb.
the sub never returned to tery for a year or two as a about the science behind levels weren't high in 2015 Guenther's preferred ex-
the surface. The keel blocks graduate student in 2000 the submarine, which was the last time the Chandra planation is speculative,
don't give a definitive an- and is now entering his 18th built in Mobile, Alabama. telescope looked at it. The said Alan Boss of the Carn-
swer, but do provide clues year helping conserve and "We keep seeing parts that star, called RW Aur A, is 450 egie Institution of Science,
that either the crew didn't study the submarine which no one has seen in 150 light-years away. A light- an expert on planets out-
think it needed to surface is stored in chilled, fresh years. All of them add into year is 5.9 trillion miles. side our solar system.
quickly or never realized water in a 75,000-gallon the mix of what happened Hans Moritz Guenther, a The study is in Wednesday's
they were in danger. (283,900-liter) tank in North and how this sub was op- scientist at the Massachu- Astronomical Journal.q
The crew moved the sub- Charleston. erated," Scafuri said. "After setts Institute of Technol-
marine through the ocean "I would love to get to that all, we don't have the blue- ogy, said he's never seen
with a hand crank, and one point absolutely," Scafuri prints." anything quite like this be-
theory is they were resting said when asked if he thinks The keel blocks go on fore, calling it "a lot strang-
on the ocean floor 4 miles scientists will ever know display at the Hunley's er than we thought we'd
(6 kilometers) from shore exactly what happened North Charleston museum be seeing."
waiting for the tide to turn inside the sub, which was Saturday.q "We've never seen any