(Via Instapundit)
Billion-Ton Comet May Have Missed Earth by a Few Hundred Kilometers in 1883
A reanalysis of historical observations suggest Earth narrowly avoided an extinction event just over a hundred years ago.
The Peshawar Lancers, for those unfamiliar with the book, is an alternate history novel by SM Stirling where a comet and/or meteor swarm impacted the Northern Hemisphere in 1878; this had the effect of more or less wiping out civilization in Europe and North America, and making the rest of civilization positively Kiplingesque. It’s a hell of a fun read – particularly if you like Victorian adventure fiction, and/or the Flashman novels* – but an absolute suckfest to live through, of course.
By the way: we aren’t really well equipped to deal with a comet coming right at us. Just saying, that’s all.
Moe Lane
*OK, OK, I’m trying to figure out how you can like the one, but not the other – but surely there’s somebody out there who has that kind of nuanced taste.