With all the effort–from bulldozers, tug boats and engineers–to free the grounded Ever Green cargo ship from the banks of the Suez Canal, one Herculean effort will go unrewarded: that of the moon.
According to Space.com, the powerful gravitational pull of the moon, in its full moon phase as well as its closest point in its orbit to Earth, raised the water level of the canal by about 18 inches over the past week, helping to float the stranded ship.
“We were helped enormously by the strong falling tide we had this afternoon,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm charged with freeing the Ever Given, told The Associated Press. “In effect, you have the forces of nature pushing hard with you, and they pushed harder than the two sea tugs could pull.”