NATO is ready to help Finland and Estonia as Finnish authorities probe an oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port over the possible “sabotage” of a power cable linking the two member countries, alliance chief Mark Rutte has said.

"Spoke with (Estonian Prime Minister) Kristen Michal about reported possible sabotage of Baltic Sea cables. NATO stands in solidarity with Allies and condemns any attacks on critical infrastructure.

“We are following investigations by Estonia and Finland, and we stand ready to provide further support,” Mr Rutte said on X.

Earlier, Finnish authorities said they were investigating an oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port for the “sabotage” of a power cable linking Finland and Estonia that was damaged the previous day.

The Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded by a Finnish coast guard crew which took command in the Baltic Sea and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coast guard official told a press conference.

“From our side we are investigating grave sabotage,” Robin Lardot, Director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, said.

“According to our understanding an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage,” he added.

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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    2 days ago

    Lol I forgor 💀

    But I used this calculator and it says if we have building as tall as the Empire State Building (380 meters tall), we can shine the laser towards another building of the same height thats 130 km away, it would still be above the curvature, along with the top 100 meters (approximately) of the building.

    See the calculations:

    So we just need relays towers every 130 kilometers or so.

    🤓

    (Sorry I got a bit goofy, bit its technically possible, no? It would be the most ridiculous information transfer system ever, but I bet the tourist attraction would bring in a lot of money. Big Lasers = Very Cool 😎)

    • NaibofTabr
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      82 days ago

      At this point you just put satellites in orbit to bounce the laser / maser off of, then you dont need to build big towers. Either way your communications beam will be affected by weather conditions (mostly humidity).

      The sattelite beam would probably perform better in general. It has a longer path, but less of the transmission path is through the dense part of the atmosphere.

      • bluGill
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        92 days ago

        geosynchonous orbit is very high latency and thus not accaptable for most communication. Low earth is okay but now you need a lot of sattelites just so one is in view.

    • @Blue_Morpho
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      42 days ago

      Has to be an extra 70+ meters higher than that because as your math shows, the straight line will intersect the curvature of the earth meaning any container ship passing would block the signal.

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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        2 days ago

        Huh?

        It shows that if h0 is 380 meters then a building 130 km away would be below the curvature if its less than 286.44 meters tall, thus not visible, but any portion of a building taller than that would be visible.

        So two 380 meter buildings 130 km away is visible to each other (at least the portion above 286.44 meters).

        The 69 kilometers is the distance to horizon… nothing to do with the buildings heights…

        Am I not understanding this correctly?

        Edit: about this:

        any container ship passing would block the signal.

        Yea the top of the building would be above the horizon by almost 100 meters, definitely visible

        • @Blue_Morpho
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          32 days ago

          What is the height of the laser beam above the horizon at distance d1?

          The picture and the calculator implies it is 0.

          Now imagine something with non zero height is sitting at the curvature midpoint at distance d1. Container ships are 70+ meters high.

          • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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            32 days ago

            If one building is 380 meter, but the other one at 130 km away is 286.4434 meters tall, yes it would be zero. But my (hypothetical) proposal would say both buildings are 380 meters, so there would be a 93 meter clearance for ships to pass below without interrupting the lasers.