Proof suggests {that a} devastating barrage of meteorites rained down on the Useless Sea metropolis of Tall el-Hammam in what’s now Jordan. And, in keeping with some researchers who assume Tall el-Hammam was the biblical metropolis of Sodom, that situation may clarify its destruction.
Credit score: John Martin/Wikimedia Commons.
Editor’s observe: This text was first revealed in 2020 and has been up to date.
Once we stargaze, we take pleasure in photons which have traveled for a lot of millennia earlier than reaching our eyes. To us, the celebs seem mounted on a so-called celestial sphere that encapsulates our whole earthly existence.
The reality, in fact, is that no such sphere exists. As a substitute, stars and galaxies are scattered via the cosmos at distances so nice they’re incomprehensible to us.
However not all celestial phenomena exist so distant. Each day, taking pictures stars fail to acknowledge a boundary between space and Earth, dropping rocks from above — and sometimes with dramatic outcomes.
Our planet is huge, so meteorites usually don’t concern us. However each occasionally, these objects truly strike people and our property.
“I do strongly suspect that stats on ‘dying by asteroid’ have been severely undercounted via human historical past,” NASA Planetary Protection Officer Lindley Johnson instructed Astronomy through e mail. “It’s solely been within the final half century or in order that we’ve even realized that such a factor may occur.”
Nonetheless, researchers nonetheless haven’t discovered a single confirmed case of dying by space rock. However that’s to not say we haven’t come shut. Trendy historical past is filled with close to misses. On many events, space rocks have exploded over populated areas and despatched hundreds of meteorites raining down.
Some of the current and well-known examples occurred in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, when a house-sized asteroid exploded over the town and injured some 1,200 individuals. Additional again, on Jan. 30, 1868, a meteor exploded exterior a city referred to as Pultusk, close to Warsaw, Poland, making a literal meteor bathe: Greater than 100,000 stones fell from the sky. The most important recovered meteorite (a fraction of a space rock that makes it to the bottom) weighed 20 kilos (9 kilograms). It’s the most important meteorite fall on file.
“The residents of Warsaw gazed, petrified with worry, on the speedy method of an immense ball of fireplace, which burst over their heads with a noise and shock reminiscent of by no means earlier than had been seen or heard on the floor of the Earth,” mineral skilled Lewis Feuchtfanger reported at a scientific convention in 1868. If somebody flew over a populated space, dropping tons of of hundreds of stones from the sky, you may anticipate at the very least one particular person to get harm. But there are not any experiences of accidents from Poland on that day.
Nonetheless, if historical students might be trusted, people haven’t at all times been so fortunate. Researchers mining historical texts in current many years have found that historic information are surprisingly wealthy with accounts of obvious deaths attributable to falling space rocks. Normally, there’s no bodily proof to substantiate these tales. But their presence in official histories and similarities to trendy accounts lead some scientists to consider at the very least among the occasions should have actually occurred.
Chinese language histories particularly are wealthy with accounts from authorities students and astronomers that doc instances when “a star fell.” These information have been saved constantly throughout many provinces and handed from dynasty to dynasty, chronicling vital occasions spanning hundreds of years. If these paperwork precisely painting meteor fireballs, then someplace between tons of to tens of hundreds of individuals have been killed by falling space rocks.
Right here, we’ve compiled a listing of among the most compelling accounts.
Round 1700 B.C.: meteor explosion could have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Roughly 3,700 years in the past, a meteor could have exploded over the Useless Sea metropolis of Tall el-Hammam. Positioned in what’s now Jordan, some scientists consider Tall el-Hammam was the biblical metropolis of Sodom. And when the blast occurred, it prompted large devastation, in keeping with a gaggle of Christian scientists who’ve studied the positioning for greater than a decade. Their research was presented in 2017 at an annual assembly of The Meteoritical Society.
Archaeologists say the explosion immediately devastated tons of of sq. miles north of the Useless Sea, destroying 100% of close by cities and cities. The blast additionally could have stripped away once-fertile soils and coated agricultural lands with superheated brine ejected from the Useless Sea. Proof of agricultural exercise doesn’t return to the panorama for at the very least 600 years.
In its heyday, the town had huge fortification partitions and was a thriving metropolis, however its buildings all seem to have crumbled attributable to one dramatic occasion. The staff says they’ve discovered a wide range of clues about what occurred in Tall el-Hammam, together with the moment heating of pottery shards and rocks to over 14,000 levels Fahrenheit (7760 levels Celsius).
Previously, scientists have urged Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by earthquakes or petrochemical fires, however these eventualities can’t absolutely clarify the excessive warmth, huge portions of ash, or why the buildings all collapsed in a single course. Solely an exploding space rock may’ve prompted that form of momentary warmth pulse.
If it really was an air blast, the impact would have been like setting off an atomic bomb over the traditional metropolis, probably killing large numbers of individuals and rendering it incapable of supporting life for hundreds of years. And, simply maybe, that situation may clarify the destruction of the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Jan. 14, A.D. 616: 10 rebels killed in wall collapse
In response to historical official Chinese language information, a big “shooting star” fell on the insurgent Lu Ming-yueh’s camp in January 616, killing 10 individuals. An account of the occasion was recorded within the E book of Sui, a historical past of the Sui dynasty commissioned by the emperor and composed by eminent students of the time.
The doc claims this shooting star knocked out a wall-attacking tower, or siege tower, leading to 10 deaths. Scientists examining the account in 1994 urged {that a} meteorite would have to be comparatively giant to have prompted that form of injury, weighing dozens and even tons of of kilos.
The official account and an outline of the fireball lend credibility to the story. Nonetheless, the staff additionally suggests the incident may have been tied to a navy marketing campaign. If that’s the case, the story we’re left with is just a type of historical propaganda.
Round 1341: ‘Iron Rain’ Over Yunnan Province Kills Individuals and Animals
A gaggle of vivid descriptions present in historical Chinese language historic paperwork file an “iron rain” that fell over Yunnan Province roughly 700 years in the past. The accounts carry quite a lot of completely different dates, starting from 1321 to 1361, presumably because of copying errors in current centuries. However researchers who studied earlier paperwork discovered that, earlier than trendy transcription, all of them agreed on a date of 1341.
The descriptions of what occurred come from cities and cities unfold over tons of of sq. miles of Yunnan Province. The native histories additionally carry comparable language, suggesting the various witness testimonies all describe the identical dramatic occasion. As a result of the fireball was seen throughout such an unlimited space, it will’ve needed to have been a really giant meteoroid to start with.
“Homes and hilltops have been all with bore-holes,” because of the iron rain, the accounts say. Astronomers assume these phrase decisions sound much like accounts of more moderen iron meteorite falls, the place fragments of the father or mother physique left tiny craters throughout landscapes. The paperwork additionally describe broken crops and folks’s properties left half in ruins. The histories don’t give an actual quantity of people that purportedly died from being hit by meteorites, however as a substitute say “most people and animals struck by them have been killed.”
April 4, 1490: 10,000 individuals killed in Chinese language metropolis of Ch’ing-yang
In response to quite a few Chinese language historic information saved by central and native governments, in addition to different sources, on April 4, 1490, someplace between 10,000 and tens of hundreds of individuals have been killed in an occasion which will have been attributable to an asteroid exploding over the town of Ch’ing-yang (or Qingyang).
It sounds so horrific it’s laborious to consider, however among the specifics match up with different well-documented occasions in more moderen historical past. The information say the stones have been all completely different sizes, with some as large as goose eggs and weighing about 3 kilos. Others have been as small as water chestnuts.
This small vary of meteorite sizes doesn’t appear probably for an impression occasion that killed so many individuals, the place you may anticipate bigger stones to be the bringers of dying. Nonetheless, some astronomers surprise if these accounts describe a Tunguska-style airburst that leveled a metropolis.
Regardless of the trigger, the accounts say the surviving residents of Ch’ing-yang all fled within the aftermath.
In a bizarre coincidence, Chinese language, Japanese and Korean astronomers additionally found a brilliant comet in 1490. This comet was seen to interrupt aside within the night time sky a century later. Astronomers now know this cometary fragmentation created the annual Quadrantid meteor bathe, in addition to the near-Earth asteroid 2003 EH1. There’s no proof the meteorite deaths are related, however it’s clear Asian astronomers of the day have been nicely conscious of celestial happenings.
1648: Two sailors killed on the Dutch ship Malacca
In 1648, two sailors have been killed whereas at sea when a big rock crashed down from the heavens and landed on the ship’s deck, in keeping with Capt. Olof E. Willman. The captain wrote down his account of the occasion practically 20 years later, and it was ultimately included in Alexander von Humboldt’s e-book Kosmos.
Willman claimed their ship, the Malacca, was touring alongside the outstanding spice commerce route between Holland and the Dutch East Indies when an 8-pound rock fell from the sky. Two of his males have been struck and died because of the impression.
Historians contemplate Willman’s account dependable, however in 1994 a Swedish scientist confirmed that there have been additionally at the very least 20 hazardous and energetic volcanoes alongside their route. So it’s additionally potential that a type of launched a “volcanic bomb” that struck the ship.
Aug. 10, 1888: Ottoman Empire information recommend meteorite dying
At round 8:30 p.m. on the night time of Aug. 10, 1888, a bright fireball carried a trail of smoke as it passed over villages in Iraq before exploding and raining stones on a “pyramid-shaped” hill. Because of this, a person who lived within the space was killed, whereas one other was paralyzed.
Researchers discovered this historic account within the former Ottoman Empire’s digitized official information. They revealed their findings in 2020 within the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science.
Ozan Unsalan, a planetary scientist at Ege College in Turkey, labored with a staff to seek for key phrases like “meteorite,” “fireball” and “stones from the sky.” They discovered 10 paperwork that matched their search, together with three tied to a single fireball occasion. Additionally they discovered proof of a number of extra giant meteor explosions within the Ottoman Empire’s centuries’ price of information.
The paperwork say rocks from the impression have been despatched again to the central authorities, however up to now the staff hasn’t been capable of find them in museums or archives.
Nonetheless, based mostly on historic accounts, dying from above appears to be nothing new.
