Alright you gamblers! What do you think is the probability of getting hit by a meteorite?
Would you even bet on that? According to scientists, you have higher chances to get struck by lightning,
hit by a tornado, and blown away by a hurricane — all at the same time. However, there was
one person who got this lucky chance! Um, maybe we shouldn’t exactly say “lucky”
here? Anyway, here’s her story.
In the early hours of November 30, 1954, people across eastern Alabama reported to have witnessed
strange things in the sky. Some said they had seen a huge fireball leaving a trace like
a giant welding arc; others told stories about a bright red light accompanied by a trail
of smoke; others still heard explosions and saw a flash of light leaving a brown cloud
behind it. Many believed it was an airplane falling from the sky, but no one knew the
real reason for this phenomenon. That is, until it hit the roof of a home in the small
town of Syl-a-cauga. About half an hour after the thing hit his
house, Eugene Hodges rushed home, only to find a huge crowd of gawkers looking at his
dwelling, agitated and pointing fingers. He had to push them away from his doorstep to
get to his wife, Ann Hodges, who was still inside. When Eugene opened the front door,
what he saw shocked him. Ann was laying on her couch, obviously in
pain, an enormous bruise on her side. The roof had a large round hole in it, as if something
big crashed through it. The wooden console radio was shattered, and somewhere on the
floor, near the couch where his wife lay, there was a grapefruit-sized chunk of black
rock. As it turned out, Ann was having a nap and
was blissfully unaware of the events that unfolded right above her head. She was woken
up by a crash but couldn’t react or do anything at all when she felt a sharp pain in her side.
People from the neighborhood started gathering around the Hodges’ house almost immediately.
Ann was afraid to touch the piece of rock beside her couch, and she was still in pain
when her husband returned. Still, she was only bruised and could walk, so she called
the police, and they sent investigators along with a government geologist to check out the
rock. Everyone was in near panic because of the
event. Some believed it was just a part of a wrecked airplane that fell somewhere around,
while others thought it was a missile attack or something. The geologist though, who rushed
in from a nearby quarry, said that the rock was a piece of a meteorite. When the news
spread, Ann Hodges immediately became the center of everyone’s attention in town.
In fact, she was so overwhelmed by the unwanted visitors that she had a nervous breakdown
and had to be taken to the hospital in a hurry. The doctors who treated her confirmed a severe
bruise, but nothing life-threatening. The meteorite itself was taken by the police and
given to the US Air Force for inspection. There, experts confirmed it was indeed a chunk
of space rock. After that, the hype rose to an incredible degree. No one really knew what
to do with the meteorite, and all generally agreed that Ann Hodges had all the rights
to keep it. Her landlady disagreed, though, saying that it was her land that the rock
hit, but in the end, she let the Hodges keep it for $500.
Up to this day, Ann Hodges remains the only human to have ever been struck by a meteorite
in the known history. What would you feel if you were to set such a record? Let me know
down in the comments! Anyway, meteorites are extremely rare guests
on our planet, mostly thanks to the layers of atmosphere that protect us from space assaults.
Normally, when they manage to break through without burning to ashes, they fall in distant,
sparsely populated areas, and no one even sees them. However, meteorites are much less
dangerous than another phenomenon they’re very closely related with: meteors.
Yeah, I know, they sound so alike you wouldn’t think there was a difference. But there is,
and a big one. You see, meteorite is a chunk of rock from outer space that lands on the
surface of our planet and hits the ground at unbelievable speeds. It’s usually a piece
of a much larger rock, or an asteroid, that got chipped and blown away. That’s exactly
what happened in Sylacauga with Ann Hodges. Meteor, on the other hand, is a similar piece
of rock that gets so hot that it shatters with violent force in the atmosphere and can
cause incredible damage. One of the most spectacular examples of a
meteor explosion was in 2013 in Chelyabinsk, Russia. It was evening, and most people were
going home from work, when, suddenly, a bright spark appeared in the sky. It flew silently,
quickly growing, and then disappeared with a final, extremely bright flash. There were
dozens of videos on the Internet made by eyewitnesses of the event, many of which you can still
find and watch yourself. Nobody really understood what was happening,
and the confusion reached its peak when the shockwave struck. It sounded like a cannon
shot, and the ground shook, rolling through the whole city. Those closest to the epicenter
were pushed back and down with such force that over 1,500 people were injured, and windows
burst in a lot of buildings throughout the town.
It was estimated that the explosion was about 30 times more powerful than an atomic bomb.
Luckily for the residents of Chelyabinsk, the meteor boomed 19 miles (30 km) above the
city, so it didn’t suffer the catastrophic consequences of such a blast. Still, it did
certain damage even at that height. But that wasn’t even the most powerful meteor
strike witnessed by humans in the recent history. That one happened in the beginning of the
20th century, and it was also in Russia — namely, Tunguska, Siberia.
June 30, 1908. A lone man was sitting in a chair on the porch of a trading post, thinking.
Suddenly, he saw how the sky in the north, above the forest, was split in two and covered
with fire. Moments later, there was a loud bang, crash, and then the sound like rocks
falling from the sky. The earth trembled, and after a few more seconds a heat wave struck
with such force that the man was blown away from his chair and felt as if his shirt was
on fire. To understand the sheer scale of the explosion,
just imagine that a huge rock, weighing over 220 million pounds, entered the Earth’s
atmosphere at the speed of 33,500 mph, and heated the air around it to the whopping 44,500°F.
The meteorite couldn’t withstand the enormous temperature and pressure, and as a result,
it blew up in the air with a force of 185 atomic bombs!
This happening was dubbed the Tunguska Event, and it was the most powerful meteor explosion
in thousands of years. The space rock that exploded in the sky above Siberia was twice
the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor and almost ten times as heavy. As a result, the blast
was so powerful that it flattened the trees in the area of 800 sq. miles, leaving them
prone on the ground, facing away from the epicenter. Right beneath the explosion, though,
the trees stood straight but bare: all of their branches and bark were stripped off
them. This happens when the shockwave is just too fast and furious, and branches break off
before they could transfer the impact to the stem of a tree.
It was later reported that the shockwave from the blast was registered by barometers as
far away as London. Dense clouds formed above Tunguska that reflected sunlight from below
the horizon, and people in Asia were able to read outside at midnight as if it was the
middle of a day. There were, of course, even more powerful
and horrifying meteor events, such as one that presumably killed off the dinosaurs millions
of years ago, but these two are probably the most impressive strikes in human history.
But what’s more disturbing is that they are not the last. Scientists are not sure
about the time and place, but huge rocks from outer space will always threaten our planet
— and maybe even its existence. However, rest assured: nothing big is coming our way
in the near future, so we shouldn’t worry about meteorites any time soon.
So, do you know of any other notorious meteor events that happened recently? Let me know
down in the comments! If you learned something new today, then give this video a like and
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