Uncovered: Chilling 19th Century Records Tell the Tale of Humanity’s Only Known Meteorite Fatality
The three documents were written in Ottoman Turkish and date back to the 19th century, more precisely. The unfortunate incident happened in what is now Sulaymaniyah, Iraq on August 22, 1888.
According to the archival documents, a fireball high in the sky was seen by residents in a nearby town around 8:30 PM, suggesting that the meteorite came from the southeast.
Then, a shower of rocks fell from the sky over a 10-minute period. The meteorite came from this shower.
Unsalan et alA map of where the 1888 meteorite shower occurred.
The documents were uncovered and analyzed by a team of researchers led by Ozan Ünsalan, an associate professor at Turkey’s Ege University. The account in the records is consistent with other documented events of such meteorite showers in which meteors typically explode or burn out before they hit Earth.
Although they may not show up on the news, our planet is bombarded by millions of meteors daily. But these space rocks typically burn out as they fall through our atmosphere. According to NASA’s fireball records, only 822 meteors have been big enough to explode in the atmosphere since 1988.
In 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteorite exploded in the atmosphere, causing a meteorite shower containing large chunks that weighed up to 1,442 pounds, and still, nobody was killed. In fact, all injuries sustained from the incident resulted from the shockwave from the explosion, not from the falling debris.
Despite the shocking regularity of Earth getting hit by these rocks from outer space, experts have not found a single instance of anyone getting killed by space debris — that is, until now.
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