![\"Black](\"https:\/\/th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com\/3MyEsJH4pM-XdOKIKXFonsxDyiU=\/1000x750\/filters:no_upscale():focal(840x560:841x561)\/https:\/\/tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/filer_public\/81\/ff\/81ff2a2f-b0b0-4363-912d-c832949e0d41\/oslo_norway_1952_12350700414.jpg\")
A Black Brant XII rocket was launched from the Andoya Rocket Range in 2010, 30 years after the Norwegian rocket incident. When the Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union<\/a>, it greatly reduced the threat of global nuclear war. But on January 25, 1995, that threat once again came front and center when Russian officers mistook a Norwegian rocket sent to study the aurora borealis<\/a> for a weapon of mass destruction.<\/p>\n While not as well known as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a>, the \u201cNorwegian rocket incident<\/a>\u201d is considered one of the world\u2019s closest brushes with nuclear war.<\/p>\n In the early morning hours of January 25, a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII<\/a>\u00a0four-stage sounding rocket from Norway\u2019s Andoya Rocket Range, a launch site off the country\u2019s northwestern coast. Its purpose<\/a>: to study the northern lights over Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.<\/p>\n Although the scientists had notified dozens of countries, including Russia, in advance of their high-altitude scientific experiment, the information never made its way to Russia\u2019s radar technicians.<\/p>\n How a Science Experiment Almost Started a Nuclear War | The Norwegian Rocket Incident<\/p>\n
\n NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY2.0<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Oslo,_Norway_1952_(12350700414).jpg\")
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