10 times the end of the world was really close

Humanity is definitely in luck since it still exists. With such incredible luck in different situations, it remains only to be surprised that we have not yet met intelligent beings in the Universe. But still, there were many chances when the end of the world could become a reality.

10. Finding Bonilla, 1883

On August 12, 1883, in Mexico, Jose Bonilla, an astronomer who studied the solar corona, discovered over 400 indistinct spots against the background of the Sun. Mysterious objects turned out to be parts of a huge collapsed comet, which miraculously escaped collision with the Earth. A similar comet caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

If fragments of a comet from fifty meters to four kilometers in diameter fell to Earth, the consequences could be compared with the result of an atomic bomb explosion. 600-8000 kilometers - namely, at this distance, according to scientists' calculations, the fragments of the comet passed from the Earth - just an insignificant distance on the scale of space.

Each such debris could cause an explosion of the same force as the Tunguska meteorite. According to scientists, this could well be the end of intelligent life on Earth.

9. Tunguska phenomenon, 1908

It is believed that the cause of the Tunguska phenomenon in 1908 was the explosion of a medium-sized asteroid or comet near the Earth. This explosion razed over 2,000 square kilometers of taiga in Russia to the ground.

Fortunately, there were no casualties: this region in Russia is sparsely populated. The force of the explosion was a thousand times greater than the energy of the atomic charge that exploded over Hiroshima and claimed more than 160 thousand human lives.

An eyewitness who observed the Tungus events from a distance of 65 kilometers says: "The sky split in half, and the entire forest was engulfed in flames."

8. Ejection of solar plasma in 2012

Despite the Mayan predictions, 2012 did not bring the end of the world for humanity. But the apocalypse was not as far away as one might think. In July 2012, an unusually huge burst of solar plasma crossed Earth's orbit at the point where our planet flew just nine days earlier.

The ingress of solar matter into the Earth would be a disaster for all electrical appliances and gadgets on the planet. The losses would be measured in trillions of dollars, and it would take at least a decade to eliminate them. In our age when electronic technologies are so important, even the thought of the possibility of such events is terrifying.

7. Asteroid Asclepius (4581)

The name Asclepius (4581) is an asteroid that passed 645,000 kilometers from Earth in March 1989. Seems like it's incredibly far away? Meanwhile, the asteroid, which passed at a point that the Earth had passed just six hours before, almost caused the end of the world.

In the event of a collision of an asteroid with the Earth, an explosion would occur similar to the explosion of a 600-megaton thermonuclear charge. For example: the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated on Earth had a yield of only 50 megatons. The explosion resulted in a mushroom cloud seven times the size of Mount Everest.

6. 1983 false alarm

In September 1983, the Soviet missile early warning system reported that the United States had fired several ICBMs towards the USSR.

When the alert sounded, the computer system displayed five detected missiles. The duty officer of the base, Stanislav Petrov, said that the alarm was wrong and did not obey the orders received. He argued that if the attack had been real, there would have been hundreds of missiles fired, not five.

Fortunately, he was right. That night, Petrov prevented a retaliatory strike by Soviet missiles and, quite possibly, by this saved humanity. The early warning system was triggered by the rare reflection of sunlight from clouds at high altitudes.

5. Submarine B-59

In the midst of the Caribbean crisis, a Soviet submarine crossed the ocean. She was soon discovered by an American warship, which began to fire small, no larger than grenades, depth charges. This was a signal for the boat to rise to the surface for identification, but the Russian sailors did not know about it.

The Americans did not know that the B-59 was armed with a nuclear torpedo equal in strength to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosions fired by the American ship rocked the submarine, and the temperature inside it rose above 38 degrees Celsius.

Desperate to rise to the surface, confident that they were being attacked by the enemy, the command staff of the submarine argued whether to fire a torpedo. To approve such an order, three votes were needed - and only one was not enough to start a nuclear war. Vasily Arkhipov, deputy commander aboard the boat, convinced the captain that this was not an attack and that the ship should rise to the surface.

As Defense Secretary McNamara put it, "the possibility of a nuclear war was much more real than everyone thought."

4. The crash of the B-52 bomber in Goldsboro, 1961

In January 1961, a B-52 bomber exploded in the air over North Carolina. He dropped his eight-megaton atomic load - two Mark-39 nuclear bombs - over the city of Goldsboro. At the time of the disaster, the United States government denied the danger that any of the bombs could detonate. But declassified data released in 2013 suggests that one bomb came very close.

Parker Jones, head of nuclear safety, said in his talk, "One simple dynamo technology, a low-voltage switch, has come between the United States and a huge catastrophe." The power of each bomb was 250 times higher than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. If the wind was blowing in a certain direction, a cloud of deadly radioactive fallout could reach New York.

3. The moon almost became the cause of universal death

In October 1960, the Greenland early warning system sounded the alarm for a nuclear attack on the United States. While the military began to panic, details of the massive attack became known.

An order was given to put the aerospace defense of the North American continent on high alert. But then someone asked: "Why would the Soviet Union launch missiles if their leader is now in talks in the United States?" The early warning reports were rechecked, and it turned out that the rising moon was the cause of the mistake that nearly cost the world its life.

2. Programmer error

In 1979, through the fault of programmers in North America, who launched the usual program for simulating a Soviet nuclear attack, the third world war almost broke out. To their misfortune, the computer on which the simulation was launched was part of the general aerospace defense network, through which real data on a fake attack was distributed across all defense systems of the country.

Jet fighters took to the air on alarm, those who were in the know said goodbye to their families - terror reigned among the military. The news that this was just a simulation elicited a sigh of relief from everyone.

1. Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

The Caribbean missile crisis peaked at midnight October 1962. Bombers with nuclear weapons were in the air all the time. The whole world, with bated breath, prayed for a peaceful resolution of this terrible situation.

A guard at an air force base in Duluth noticed an unknown person trying to break through the fence. The guard fired several shots and activated the burglar alarms, which were set up to activate alarms at nearby bases as well.So, at the base in Folk Field, a false alarm was triggered, which became the signal for the beginning of the third world war.

The pilots were alerted, fighters and bombers were taken to the runways. There were seconds left before the flight towards the Soviet Union when a desperately honking truck drove onto the runway, trying to warn the pilots that the alarm was false.

And who was that mysterious figure who launched the entire chain of reactions that almost led to the apocalypse? Russian saboteur? Not at all. It turned out to be just a confused bear.