1908 Meteoroid Impact Event Could Have Killed Millions

Our planet has an intimate relationship with Asteroids and meteoroids and the like. Specifically with objects from the Taurid meteor stream. The Earth has passed through this 13.8 Million Km wide stream of space rock twice per year for the last 20,000-30,000 years. It's the equivalent of running across an eight lane highway blindfolded twice per year.

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The evidence is mounting that it was debris from the Taurids that 12,900-12,800 years ago caused a cataclysmic series of impact events that put the world into a state of chaos until 11,600 years ago. That's a story for another post though ;)

The last time we experienced an impact with the Taurids was on 30 June 1908 in Siberia. A 60 to 190 meter meteoroid exploded in mid air right above the site. Flattening Approximately 80 million trees!

Here is one witnesses account of the event.

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Testimony of S. Semenov, as recorded by Leonid Kulik's expedition in 1930:[19]

"At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. […] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few meters. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped."

Fortunately for humanity the impact site was uninhabited at this time.

It is estimated that the Tunguska explosion knocked down some 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2. It was estimated to unleashed the equivalent energy to 1,000 Hiroshima Bombs (or 15 megatons of TNT). If for example this rock had hit London today. Over 9,000,000 people would have been killed, leaving no trace of one of the most iconic cities in the world. It would have been completely wiped off the map.

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This is the sort of universe we inhabit, it does not care about us, It's quite morbid to say this, but it would take an event like this to happen in a major city for us as a species to wake up and pay attention.

Something similar happened in Russia in 2013 which could have been much more deadly that it was if the angle of the incoming ET object was slightly steeper, since the angle wasn't so steep the object just burned up in the atmosphere. Here's a video of it in action, could have been a lot worse but the meteor landed in a frozen lake which absorbed a lot of the impact.

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