Researchers have finally solved the 200-year-old mystery behind the blue-tinted sun.
According to Independent, back in 1831, a powerful volcanic eruption released huge amounts of sunlight-reflecting sulphurous gases, causing global cooling of about 1C and triggering crop failures and famines worldwide.
The eruption turned the sun’s appearance strange, turning it into different colours, including blue, purple, and green.
After almost 200 years, scientists in a study published in the PNAS journal revealed that the Zavaritskii volcano, an uninhabited island of Simushir, was behind the massive eruption.
The co-author of the study, Will Hutchison, stated, “The moment in the lab when we analysed the two ashes together, one from the volcano and one from the ice core, was a genuine eureka moment.”
The island is now a disputed territory between Russia and Japan, currently controlled by Moscow.
Notably, although the Zavaritskii volcano is remote, its eruption caused a serious impact on the global climate and people worldwide.
Dr. Hutchison explained, “We analysed the chemistry of the ice at a very high temporal resolution. This allowed us to pinpoint the precise timing of the eruption to spring-summer 1831, confirm that it was highly explosive, and then extract the tiny shards of ash.”
“Only in recent years have we developed the ability to extract microscopic ash shards from polar ice cores and conduct detailed chemical analyses. These shards are incredibly minute, roughly one-tenth the diameter of a human hair,” he further added.
Scientists, after solving the mystery, suggested that it is essential to identify the other unknown volcanic eruptions from the past.
