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Russia Confirms Failed Missile Launch Caused Norway's Light Show

Posted by timothy on from the disney-world-does-it-every-night dept.

Ch_Omega writes "According to this article over at BarentsObserver, the giant spiral seen on the sky over Norway Wednesday morning local time has been confirmed to be the result of a failed Russian missile launch. Russia now confirms that '...the missile was launched from submerged position in the White Sea by the nuclear submarine Dmitri Donskoy. Studies of the telemetric data from the launch show that the two first stages of the missile functioned as they should, and that a technical malfunctioning occurred during the third stage.' There is also an article on this at The Daily Mail."

2 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Well paint me surprised: by vivian · · Score: 5, Informative

    as far as I know being able to launch a missile while the sub is submerged would be a huge leap forward in the nuclear arms race.

    This video seems to show underwater missile launches have been done for quite a while now...

  2. Re:Well paint me surprised: by timothyf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nearly all of the unfrozen sea that Russia has easy access to in the north is also relatively close to Norway (purple is the extent of sea ice):

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png