The most powerful volcanic eruption of the last century occurred in 2022 with the Hunga volcano, and new research reveals it caused massive changes to the Pacific Ocean floor, according to an international team of researchers.

In a recent paper published in Nature Geoscience, researchers revealed the extent of the underwater caldera collapse, in which material equal to 1,500 Great Pyramids was displaced, and a massive tsunami was created.

According to the team, studying this volcanic event yields important new information for monitoring such calamities and highlights what is to be gained by increased mapping efforts. Close monitoring is an essential element of tsunami early warning systems, where time is of the essence in saving lives.

2022 Hunga Volcano Eruption

Beginning December 20, 2021, and reaching its climax on January 15, 2022, the Hunga volcano eruption was a devastating underwater event. It occurred north of Tonga, an archipelago in the Pacific, and its effects spread as far as Chile, Peru, and Russia. The volcano is part of the Tonga–Kermadec Arc, a major submarine feature with 74 underwater volcanoes and 20 caldera complexes.

A caldera is a large depression that can form when magma is expelled from beneath a volcano and the overlying ground collapses. As a result of the eruption, the caldera deepened from roughly 150 meters below sea level to as much as 850 meters. The event displaced an enormous amount of volcanic material—8.9 cubic kilometers—and generated waves and underwater flows that destroyed crucial telecommunications cables and contributed to massive tsunamis. Fortunately, the eruption was far less deadly than an event like the 2011 Japanese tsunami. While millions of dollars in damage occurred, the global death toll remained at seven, despite fatalities occurring as far away as Peru.

Volcanic Caldera

While some of the displaced material resulted from erosion produced by the event, most of it was newly erupted magma. Still, only about 30% of the total magma involved was displaced, leaving a significant amount behind.

Historically, undersea volcanic calderas have been linked to some of Earth’s most catastrophic eruptions. Some 30,000 people died in 1883 when Indonesia’s Krakatau erupted, generating tsunamis and incredibly powerful ocean currents.

The Hunga caldera is extremely steep and formed during a rapid collapse, the speed and scale of which helped produce a tsunami even larger near the volcano than the one generated by Krakatau in the nineteenth century. Even about 100 kilometers from the volcano, waves reached heights of 40 meters.

Exploring the Sea

Scientists often discuss how mysterious the seafloor remains, representing a largely unexplored frontier here on our own planet. Yet with Hunga, this was not the case, as the seafloor in the region had already been extensively mapped. Having such detailed maps from before an underwater volcanic eruption is extremely rare, making this a unique opportunity for scientists to study the impact of such an event.

By comparing these before-and-after datasets, the team can identify changes to the seafloor and better understand the threats such events pose to coastal communities and critical undersea infrastructure, including communications and energy links. By collecting repeated observations, scientists may eventually be able to develop better predictive models.

The researchers say this event illustrates the need for more extensive and repeated high-resolution seafloor mapping to better study these changes. They note that the southwest Pacific is particularly in need of improved mapping. By developing better mapping datasets, the team hopes to help mitigate the impacts of future—and potentially deadlier—events.

The paper, “Rapid Submarine Caldera Collapse During the 2022 Climactic Eruption of Hunga Volcano (Tonga),” appeared in Nature Geoscience on September 11, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Chinese scientists at the Beijing Institute of Technology have run satellite proximity simulations to extend potentially hostile observation of U.S. space assets in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), seemingly inching both countries closer to a potential war in space.

Although the new simulations focus on orbital adjustments to extend observation times and increase proximity to U.S. satellites, including critical missile warning and other space defense-oriented systems, Chinese scientists also plan to integrate reinforcement learning methods into future space assets to give satellites even more independence from human operators.

Study Includes Accusations of Cold War in Space Activities

In the 20th century, the concept of war in space remained mostly in the realm of science fiction, as depicted in popular films like Star Wars. Today, advances in space access, orbital maneuvering technologies, and weapons systems have made the possibility of a future conflict in space a very real security concern, and several nations engage in espionage using reconnaissance spacecraft to obtain information on valuable defense targets in Earth’s orbit.

According to the authors of the new study, “acquiring multi-aspect payload information of non-cooperative targets to infer their functions and mission statuses is of great significance for space security assessment.”

The study authors highlight a series of relative motion configurations that modern spy satellites employ, including fly-around, hovering, and drifting flight. They also point to real-world “adversarial” U.S missions they suggest were designed to gather intelligence on their GEO defense assets.

“Since 2014, the US GSSAP (United States Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program) satellite has carried out hundreds of maneuvers and has conducted close observation operations on dozens of normally working satellites near GEO orbit,” the Beijing University of Technology scientists write.

The study authors also include a specific July 2021 accusation, where they charge that “the U.S. satellite ‘USA-271’ deliberately approached the operational ‘Practice 20’ satellite in geostationary orbit and flew in close proximity.”

In an email to The Debrief, a U.S. Space Command Spokesperson did not address the specific incident or the accusations of “dozens” of similar operations, but offered some insight into the agency’s thinking.

“USSPACECOM, working with allies and partners, plans, executes, and integrates military spacepower into multi-domain global operations in order to deter aggression, defend national interests, and when necessary, defeat threats,” the spokesperson told The Debrief, adding that “we have nothing additional to add in response to the article.”

Getting Closer to Adversarial Satellites and Extending Observation Time

In a step toward potential dogfights between satellites, the Chinese scientists looked at several challenges faced by current spy satellites.

For example, they explain, since most spacecraft observation cameras are mounted in a fixed position, “frequent large-angle attitude maneuvers are time-consuming and consume substantial fuel.” The researcher also noted that several different angles and approaches could yield different categories of intelligence data.

However, changing angles and orbital planes requires fuel, an extremely limited resource in GEO. Therefore, the researcher accounting for all the variables required to gather intelligence on adversarial spacecraft as efficiently as possible “has become a key bottleneck in enhancing space situational awareness capabilities.”

To find an optimized solution, the team designed what they called a “waypoint trajectory planning scheme” and a “multi-impulse maneuver strategy” using a common game-theory tool called “minimum integral squared control” theory. Unlike previous research aimed at extending spy satellite observation time and fuel efficiency, the Chinese scientists said their use of sequential coalition game theory “is introduced for the first time into the multi-model combined observation problem.”

Next, the researchers designed a “game tree.” A press release said this approach lets the spacecraft select the “optimal combination of initial motion points and close-range operation models at each stage under minimum fuel constraints, thereby generating an optimal observation strategy sequence.”

Finally, the researchers ran simulations to see whether their approach improved sensor observation times and field of view while reducing fuel use.

Successful Simulations and Future Reinforcement Learning Plans

As hoped, the Beijing University of Technology team said their simulations supported the theories. Specifically, the study authors said the simulations showed that their spacecraft efficiency algorithm “can successfully generate a multi-model combined observation strategy sequence under minimum fuel constraints.”

“The effective observation time increases with larger observation distances and field-of-view angles, and reducing the model configuration size also contributes to improved observation performance,” they explained. The study authors also said that the simulation results “demonstrate that the algorithm can successfully generate the optimal combined observation sequence under minimum fuel constraints.”

When discussing next steps, the Chinese scientists said they will explore optimal initial points to further improve maneuver efficiency. They also plan to explore a “reinforcement learning method,” suggesting future spacecraft could learn and adapt to evolving conditions to further enhance their cold war in space information-gathering capabilities.

Study’s War in Space Implications “Extends Beyond any Single Algorithm”

To understand the potential implications of the Chinese study, including its impacts on a potential future war in space, The Debrief reached out to former U.S. Air Force officer Shelli Brunswick, CEO and Founder, SB Global LLC.

According to the author and futurist, the Chinese team’s research matters not just because it proves China has deployed a “new operational surveillance capability.” Instead, Brunswick said that the work is significant because it “illustrates how sophisticated coordination and optimization could make spacecraft observation more efficient, persistent, and strategically useful.”

The Blue Marble Space Visiting Scholar also told The Debrief that the work “should not be interpreted as demonstrating a complete pursuit-and-evasion capability against a spacecraft that is actively responding,” since the work assumes a stationary target without maneuvering capabilities. Still, Brunswick noted, the Chinese framework “shows how game-theoretic planning could help an observing satellite gather information from multiple angles while managing limited resources.”

When discussing the potential implications for the broader U.S.-China space-security competition, including how such enhanced spacecraft could lead to more activities that could be construed as hostile, the space strategist said this area of research “extends beyond any single algorithm.”

“As rendezvous and proximity operations become more sophisticated, the line between inspection, space situational awareness, intelligence gathering, and potentially threatening behavior becomes increasingly difficult to interpret,” she explained.

When suggesting what potential strategic responses the U.S. and its allies might employ in the emerging cold war in space, Brunswick told The Debrief that they should include “more resilient architectures, improved space-domain awareness, clearer expectations for close approaches, stronger communication mechanisms, and deeper coordination with commercial and international partners.”

“The challenge is not simply detecting another spacecraft—it is understanding capability and intent early enough to respond responsibly and effectively,” Brunswick explained.

The study “Spacecraft Proximity Operation Model-Based Sequential Coalitional Observation Game Strategy Design” was published in Space: Science & Technology. 

Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.

The Space Development Agency was established in 2019 to help speed up the deployment of US military space systems by sidestepping the Pentagon's traditional sluggish bureaucracy.

Seven years later, SDA is finally launching its first batches of operational satellites, just as the Pentagon plans to shutter the semi-autonomous agency and fold it back into the Space Force's procurement pipeline, newly reorganized under several program acquisition executives in a bid to streamline weapons buying.

SDA's fate is not a surprise, and lawmakers in both houses of Congress have backed the agency's closure in drafts of this year's National Defense Authorization Act.

Read full article

Comments

© SpaceX

The Space Development Agency was established in 2019 to help speed up the deployment of US military space systems by sidestepping the Pentagon's traditional sluggish bureaucracy.

Seven years later, SDA is finally launching its first batches of operational satellites, just as the Pentagon plans to shutter the semi-autonomous agency and fold it back into the Space Force's procurement pipeline, newly reorganized under several program acquisition executives in a bid to streamline weapons buying.

SDA's fate is not a surprise, and lawmakers in both houses of Congress have backed the agency's closure in drafts of this year's National Defense Authorization Act.

Read full article

Comments

© SpaceX

Mikki Willis critiques the intertwining of Christian Zionism and U.S. military rhetoric concerning 'end times' wherein President Trump is falsely portrayed as divinely chosen to fight for God and Israel. He warns against the dangers of weaponized faith promoting violence and fear-based manipulation among believers.