A quiz question · medium
How far away was the January 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption heard?
The largest explosion of the instrumental era sent a pressure wave around the Earth at least four times and the first plume ever observed to reach the mesosphere.
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The Hunga Tonga Eruption of 15 January 2022, the Largest Explosion Ever Recorded by Instruments On 15 January 2022 the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai erupted with a blast heard in Alaska, 9,700 km away. Its plume reached 57 km — the first ever observed to enter the mesosphere — its pressure wave circled the Earth for days, and it injected an unprecedented mass of water vapour into the stratosphere. Tonga was cut off from the world for days by a severed cable.
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