While humanity came out dry from the water. Given how lucky we have been so far, it becomes strange why we haven't found life anywhere else in the universe yet. However, there have been many cases where the human race was almost on the brink of the end of the world.
Bonilla's observation
1883 year
On August 12, 1883, Mexican astronomer José Bonilla observed over 400 dark, fuzzy, unknown objects crossing the Sun while studying its corona. Unknown to him, these objects were fragments of a comet weighing over a billion tons, which disintegrated and miraculously passed the Earth. A comet of this size once killed dinosaurs.
Each fragment was 50 meters to 4 kilometers in size and much more powerful than an atomic bomb. According to various estimates, the fragments passed at a distance of 600 to 8000 kilometers from the Earth. This is very small in a cosmic sense. Each such fragment could lead to an explosion similar to that caused by the Tunguska meteorite. According to scientists, life on Earth would surely come to an end.
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Tunguska meteorite
1908 year
The Tunguska event was caused by the impact of a small asteroid or comet that disintegrated near the Earth's surface in 1908. The air blast that happened then knocked down more than 2,000 square kilometers of dense forest in Russia.
Fortunately, no one was killed by the explosion as it happened in a sparsely populated area. The explosion was equivalent to the force of 1,000 bombs that fell on Hiroshima and killed 160,000 people. A witness who was 65 kilometers from the event described it as follows: "The sky split in two, and there was a high and wide fire over the forest."
Coronal mass ejection
year 2012
As we all know, the world did not end in 2012, contrary to Mayan predictions. But he was closer than you think. An incredibly powerful burst of plasma from the Sun happened in July of that year, sliding to the spot in Earth's orbit where the planet had been nine days earlier.
If this solar mass hit the Earth itself, the damage to electronic equipment would be catastrophic. It would cause trillions of dollars in damage, and it would take a decade to recover. In an era when we are so dependent on technology, such an event would be dire.
4581 Asclepius
1989 year
4581 Asclepius is the name of an asteroid that passed 645,000 kilometers from Earth in March 1989. Quite far away, right? Well, the end of the world is almost here, because 4581 Asclepius passed through the exact position of the Earth six hours earlier.
If the asteroid hit, the explosion would be equivalent to a 600 megaton thermonuclear explosion. For comparison: the most powerful nuclear bomb was 50 megatons. The mushroom cloud that could have formed in the process of such an explosion would have been 7 times higher than Mount Everest.
False alarm
1983 year
In September 1983, the Soviet nuclear early warning system reported that the United States had fired many ICBMs towards the USSR.
While the alarm rang, computer systems reported five missiles en route. Stanislav Petrov, an officer on duty at the base, said the warnings were false alarms and did not follow orders. He stated that if an attack had occurred, not five missiles would have been launched, but hundreds.
Fortunately, he was right. That evening, Petrov did not allow the Soviet troops to retaliate, possibly saving humanity by this. The false alarm was attributed to the rare effect of sunlight on high-altitude clouds.
Submarine B-59
In the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a lone Soviet submarine glided quietly across the ocean. Soon it was found by US Navy warships, which began to discharge small depth charges. This was the signal for the B-59 to surface for identification, but the Russian crew was unaware of this.
Unknown to the Americans, the B-59 was armed with a single nuclear torpedo with a destructive force equal to that of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The sub was hit by small explosions on the left and right, and the temperature inside rose to 38 degrees Celsius.
Not wanting to go to the surface, but confident that they were being attacked, the submarine commanders argued about whether to launch a torpedo. Three votes were needed, and only one separated the world from a nuclear war. Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Arkhipov convinced the captain that they were not being attacked and that they needed to go to the surface. Back then, nuclear war was much closer than many people thought.
B-52 wreck in Goldsboro
1961 year
In January 1961, a B-52 bomber, loaded with two Mark 39 nuclear bombs, fell apart in the air and dropped its 8-megaton payload at Goldsboro, North Carolina. At the time of the crash, the American government denied that any of the dropped bombs could have detonated. But declassified information that came out in 2013 showed that one of the bombs was very close to exploding.
Nuclear Safety Observer Parker Jones said that "one simple dynamo technology, a low voltage switch, was caught between the US and a major disaster." Each bomb was 250 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima. If the wind blew in the right direction, deadly radioactive ash would cover New York.
The moon almost killed us
In October 1960, early warning radar bases in Greenland began sending insane signals that the United States was under attack. As the military began to stir, details of the large-scale attack were revealed.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is on full alert. Then someone asked: "Why would the Soviet Union attack when its leader is in the United States in negotiations?" As a result, the messages were rechecked and it turned out that the rising moon was mistaken for a threat to the national security of the country.
Tests were mistaken for a real threat
In 1979, the programmers at NORAD almost started World War III when they launched the traditional simulation of the Soviet attack. Unfortunately for them, the computer systems on which the tests were conducted were plugged into the NORAD network and sent live data from the mock attack to defense systems across the country.
Jet fighters were lifted into the air, people began to say goodbye to their loved ones, and terror reigned among the military. Imagine a sigh of relief when the news broke that this was all a big prank.
Cuban missile crisis
1962 year
Around midnight in October 1962, the Cuban missile crisis was at its peak. Nuclear bombers were constantly in the air, and the whole world held its breath and prayed for the peaceful end of the terrible test.
A guard at Duluth Air Base noticed a mysterious figure trying to climb over the fence. The guard fired multiple shots and triggered an alarm that triggered identical alarms at neighboring bases. But at Wolf Field, a very bad signal was heard, which signaled the beginning of the Third World War.
The pilots were called in and began lining up onto the runway with their fighters and nuclear-armed bombers. They were seconds away from takeoff and the delivery of atomic destruction to Russian soil. Then a truck rushed in. He desperately flashed his headlights, trying to inform the pilots of a false alarm.
Who was this dark figure who almost started an apocalyptic chain reaction? Soviet saboteur? Not. It turned out that it was nothing more than a frightened bear.
ILYA KHEL