Space disasters

Impact events and airburst
Asteroids that impact the Earth have led to several major extinction events, including one which created the Chicxulub crater 64.9 million years ago and which is associated with the demise of the dinosaurs. Scientists estimate that the likelihood of death for a living human from a global impact event is comparable to the probability of death from an airliner crash.
No human death has been definitively attributed to an impact event, but the 1490 Ch'ing-yang event in which over 10,000 people may have died has been linked to a meteor shower. Even asteroids and comets that burn up in the atmosphere can cause significant destruction on the ground due to the air burst explosion: notable air bursts include the Tunguska event in June 1908, which devastated large areas of Siberian countryside, and the Chelyabinsk meteor on 15 February 2013, which caused widespread property damage in the city of Chelyabinsk and injured 1,491.
Solar flare
A solar flare is a phenomenon where the Sun suddenly releases a great amount of solar radiation, much more than normal. Solar flares are unlikely to cause any direct injury, but can destroy electrical equipment. The potential of solar storms to cause disaster was seen during the 1859 Carrington event, which disrupted the telegraph network, and the March 1989 geomagnetic storm which blacked out Quebec. Some major known solar flares include the X20 event on August 16, 1989, and a similar flare on April 2, 2001. The most powerful flare ever recorded occurred on November 4, 2003 (estimated at between X40 and X45).
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