Life on Earth Nearly Wiped Out of Existence in 1883

[Mal12345]

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/10/giant-comet-alm.php

"The really scary part is just how close this comet came to hitting the Earth: since only Bonilla saw the fragments and no other astronomers did, that means that it had to be close to us. Very close. Very, seriously, it's not even funny close. The minimum distance that the fragments passed was calculated to be about 400 miles from the Earth's surface, which is nothing. That's only 150 miles or so above the International Space Station. If the comet had been in a slightly different orbit, or had broken up at a slightly different time, as of about a hundred years ago, our entire civilization might have ceased to exist."

 

[CoolCole]

Seriously?

 

[Mal12345]

Seriously?

Here's another article about this:
http://theweek.com/article/index/220431/did-a-massive-comet-almost-wipe-out-humans-in-1883

Why was Bonilla the only one to see it?
Because the objects came close to Earth — anywhere from 373 to 4,970 miles — an obscuring called "parallax" occurred, says Wired's Mark Brown. Essentially, only certain regions of the Earth lined up with both the sun and the comet fragments — much in the same way that only certain locales are able to view a lunar eclipse. In this case, northern India and southeast Asia are among the only other places where people might have seen what Bonilla witnessed — and they "weren't exactly astronomy hotspots in 1883."

Was the comet really that dangerous?
Yes. If these fragments had hit our planet, we probably wouldn't be here. In 1908, an object of similar size smashed into Russia, in what history has dubbed the Tunguska event. The blast was "1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb," says Brown. If Bonilla's observations were correct, then the Earth could have seen "3,275 Tunguska events in two days," says one of the new study's authors — "probably an extinction event."

 

[Giggly]

Amazing! That can happen at any time.

 

[Istbkleta]

Those are not the MOST reputable sources ever. Is this published somewhere else?

 

[Mal12345]

Those are not the MOST reputable sources ever. Is this published somewhere else?

All over the place. Ask Snopes.com about this if i you want. They don't have an article on the incident yet.

 

[Scott N Denver]

I read this from a link from yahoo science news. Not entirely sure how much to make of it...

 

[Mal12345]

I read this from a link from yahoo science news. Not entirely sure how much to make of it...

I just submitted it to Snopes for you.

 

[entropie]

I was born in 1983, thats why the comet came, a century after the event. Its like they say, comets bring forth the birth of kings !!