Is said to have wiped out the story of the great comet of 1883, almost humanity

In August 1883, the Mexican astronomer Jose Bonilla made ​​a strange observation. From the observatory in Zacatecas, he has seen from the sun. He saw many small objects move over the solar disk. What were these things knew no one. Hector Javier Manterola Durand, Maria de la Paz Ramos Lara, and Guadalupe Cordero of the National University of Mexico have seen again today, this historical observations accurately, and have come to an astonishing conclusion: In 128 years we have escaped narrowly a huge disaster.

He saw hundreds of small objects, which were surrounded by a kind of fog. They were at 12 and 13 August to see and Bonilla has made drawings and even a photo of it - not very good, after all, photography was invented at that time was not long.

The editor of the magazine "L'Astronomie" was published in the Bonillas observation has, at the end of the article or a note inserted. The opinion notes that the observations are interesting, but difficult to explain. Perhaps it has acted to birds, insects and dust in the telescope? Because what Bonilla has seen has usually can not observe any other astronomer. Hector and his colleagues have Manterola Bonillas observation, however, taken seriously and proposed an interesting hypothesis: the small objects which he saw pass before the sun, were the fragments of a comet. If Bonilla could see the comet from Zacatecas, his colleagues on Puebla (728 km away) and Mexico City (603 km away) is not, then it means that the comet of the earth must have been very close.

This can be understood easily. Would reduce the dark spots are located directly on the solar surface, then they might look like from any point on Earth from which one can see the sun. If it had been only so simple sunspots, the observers were in the other observatories, they also have to see. It must therefore have acted to objects moving between earth and sun are. Here it comes now down to how close they are to the earth and where on the earth itself is one. One needs to look at the correct angle to the objects so that they are just to be seen against the solar disk. That does not work from any location on earth and the earth and objects are closer to each other, the smaller the range, can see the pull of one of them over against the sun.

Manterola and his colleagues have now calculated that the comet may have been more than 64,804 km from Earth. He was her much closer than the moon! The distance can be limited, however, continue. Bonilla has estimated that the objects needed between a third and a full second to traverse the solar disk. Considering the typical speeds, which has a comet near the Earth (between 15 and 75 kilometers per second), then it follows that the only comet 538-8062 miles away! And it was no small comet ... Further analysis of Bonillas observations showed that the objects 46-795 meters were large and weighed between half a million and 2.5 billion tons. Before the comet broke apart, he must have been about eight times as heavy as the famous comet Hallysche!

A faszinierden history. If the broken comet collides with Earth, then the consequences would have been catastrophic. The smaller fragments would have had the same destructive power as it was then the object that is struck Tunguska in 1908 and has devastated an area of about 2000 km ². And the larger fragments have not had much worse consequences ... As humanity in 1883 with a massive bombardment of this type would have coped, can hardly be said, and whether they would ever come to cope is doubtful. But the story would have certainly taken a different course.

However, I think that there has never been this comet. Its existence indicates that only one observation of Bonilla and that's very strange. If such a great cloud of comet fragments as close to the earth flies past, you should notice the fact. There should not only be a single astronomer in Mexico to see a few dark spots in the telescope. What happens when the Earth crosses the orbit of a comet falling apart, I've only recently re-stated: There are lots of shooting stars! . Because if it has actually traded at a comet, then yes there were certainly able to see not only large fragments of the Bonilla, but also much more smaller fragments and a huge dust lane. So when flying over a broken comet near the Earth, then there must be meteor showers, in which the people still remember decades later! Of these, 1883 but nothing was visible. I'm also skeptical that you can really draw from such observations Bonillas far-reaching conclusions.

The basis for the calculation of the extremely small distance so were Bonillas time measurements and no one knows how he carried out the (or if the values were only estimated). No one has investigated the telescope and to see if everything was in appearance with the order. What irritates me personally the most is the fact that the objects Bonilla two consecutive days has seen. As I have already explained above: The locations on the earth, from which one can see a comet from the sun take over disc depend on the particular configuration. An eclipse of the moon in passing (also a very near-Earth object) from the sun disc moves - can be observed only for a short time and at a few places on earth. After that, the Earth and Moon have already moved so far that no longer fit the lines of sight and the moon is no longer to be seen against the sun. Bonilla, now that two whole days - two days in which Earth and comet fragments have indeed moved too - the only one in Zacatecas in the world was that happened to look just right on the comet, I think is extremely unlikely.

The story of the great comet of 1883 nearly wiped out humanity, is exciting. But I'm actually pretty sure it's not true.