Killed because the meteorite hit first in human history

According to Space.com, a team of researchers in Turkey claimed to have found the first credible evidence of a human being killed by a meteorite.

Accordingly, the incident was recorded in a piece of documents restored from the digital library of the National Archives of Turkey. The researchers said this was a letter from a local official to the 34th King of the Ottoman Empire - Abdul Hamid II to report on a meteorite explosion on August 22, 1888.

The most reliable evidence ever

At 20:30 that day, a large fireball was seen by people in the sky of what is now the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq today. Just a few seconds later, a series of small meteorite fragments continuously hit a village in the area for 10 minutes. 

As a result, this rare incident killed an unidentified man and wounded another person, marking the first time in history to find reliable evidence that humans died after being hit by asteroid . 

Currently, the researchers have not been able to accurately determine the height, speed, size and position when colliding with the meteorite's ground. However, based on records in ancient texts, the researchers believe that the meteorite plunged to the southeast toward the southeast, exploding just above the sky before its small meteorite pieces collided with a crest. hills in Sulaymaniyah. Many crops and crops in the area have also been damaged by the shock wave of the meteorite when exploded. 

Reportedly, the team of researchers is still actively seeking more evidence of the incident in the Turkish government's digital archive.

" We wanted to find out how Sultan Abdul Hamid II reacted after receiving reports from local officials. We also wanted to look for the remains of the meteorite after it collided." to the ground, "said the team representative.

There have never been any recorded deaths from asteroids

According to Space.com, millions of meteors fall into the Earth's atmosphere every day. However, very few meteors are likely to fall to the surface. Most of them are small in size and mass, and were burned as soon as they crashed into Earth's atmosphere.

However, according to the NASA database, since 1988, at least 822 meteors are large enough to explode in the atmosphere, creating a constant number of smaller meteorite fragments. able to plunge to the ground. Therefore, the possibility of humans being killed by a falling meteorite debris is probable, although the probability is extremely low, only about 1 in 75 million. 

However, up to now, scientists have not recorded any direct deaths due to meteorites, partly because there has not been found compelling evidence. Most historical records of such accidents are quite vague. Only one case was confirmed to have been injured by a falling meteorite. It was a woman named Ann Hodges, 34 years old, living in Sylacauga City, Alabama, USA. 

On November 30, 1954, while taking a nap on the sofa in his home, a meteorite about the size of a tennis ball, weighing 3.8kg from the sky, fell through the roof and hit his hip. Mrs. Ann Hodges. Ann Hodges was immediately taken to the hospital by her family. The test results showed that she had only minor injuries with a few bruises on her body.

In 2013, a fairly large meteorite exploded in the atmosphere and poured down Chelyabinsk region (Russia) pieces of meteorite weighing 654 kg. However, there have not been any deaths or injuries due to direct hit by meteorite. Most of the injuries were due to the impact of the shockwave when the meteorite exploded, causing a series of glass doors of many buildings in Chelyabinsk to shatter.

In 2016, Kamraj, a bus driver, was killed after falling by an unknown object on the campus of Bharathidasan Technical University (India). Two other gardeners and one student were also injured. Subsequent conclusions from NASA suggest that the aforementioned object could be a fragment of a rocket, rather than a meteorite.

Watch video: A meteorite moment exploded in the sky of the city of Chelyabinsk (Russia) in 2013