First confirmed meteorite death?
Surprisingly, though, there’s never been a proven death by meteorite, despite widespread acceptance that it has probably happened before. Absolute proof is hard to find. Perhaps the closest confirmation in history is the famous Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908, in which historical accounts suggest at least one person was killed by an airburst. But scientists never found fragments from the exploded space rock, so nobody ever studied the meteoritic material that rained down.
Earth had another close call more recently. In 2013, some 1,200 people were injured during an air blast over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The event, widely recorded on dashcams and surveillance cameras, seems strikingly similar to the one depicted in the Ottoman Empire accounts. In Russia, a 60-foot (18 meter) asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere at about 40,000 miles per hour (64,400 kph). The intense heat and pressure it faced while barreling through our atmosphere caused it to explode as a superbolide meteor, or a giant fireball.
The resulting shock wave — which lagged well behind the bright visual burst, giving people plenty of time to look up — blasted out windows across the city, scattering dangerous debris. The concussive wave was even powerful enough to punch a large hole in a frozen lake. Most people faced lacerations from flying glass; one man had a serious back injury from being thrown to the ground. But, fortunately, no one was killed.
Physicist Mark Boslough is an expert in meteor fireballs and was one of the first Western scientists to arrive after the Chelyabinsk event in 2013. He wasn’t involved in the latest research about the 1888 event, but admits the researchers have a “compelling story,” albeit one without physical evidence.
“I would not use the word ‘proof,’” he said, adding “It will be very exciting if this historical research leads to meteorite discoveries.”
NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer, Lindley Johnson, who was also not involved in the new research, said he was intrigued by the study. “I found their story to be credible to the extent it can be so many years after the fact,” Johnson said. “Finding a meteorite sample would certainly cinch it.”