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Type: Largest known Earthbound explosion
About 65 million years ago, an event known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary Event caused the extinction of many organisms, but is most famous for causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Many scientists believe that this was caused by an asteroid impact that created the Chicxulub Crater located off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. It is estimated that the explosive force of this impact would have been the equivalent of 96 teratons of TNT, or about 1.7 million Tsar Bombas. This would make the impact the greatest explosion to ever occur on earth, for which there is sufficient geological evidence. The impact would have caused climate change, much like Mt. Tambora but much more drastic, and this climate change is believed to be what ultimately killed the dinosaurs.
GRB 080319B
Type: Largest explosion ever directly witnessed by humans
Gamma- ray [11] bursts are among the most violent known events in the universe. The exact cause of Gamma-ray bursts is not fully understood, although most astronomers hold that they are linked to extremely large supernovae. Gamma-ray bursts usually last [12] 20 to 40 seconds and shine gamma-rays (hence the name) in a relatively narrow direction. Gamma-ray bursts are extremely rare, with one occurring every few hundred thousand years in each galaxy. On March 19, 2008, a gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B occurred, and was visible to the naked eye for about 30 seconds. The explosion took place 7.5 billion light-years away, making the most distant object viewable without a telescope. The explosion is estimated to have generated the equivalent of 2×1034 tons of TNT, or about the equivalent of 10,000 times the Sun’s weight in TNT detonating all at once.
SN2006gy
Type: Largest known supernova
On September 16, 2006, the largest known supernova, SN2006gy, was discovered. Supernovae occur when stars run out of fuel, collapse on themselves, and then explode. Extremely large supernovae, or hypernovae, are among the most violent events in the universe, and are believed by many to be the source of gamma-ray bursts. SN2006gy occurred 230 million light years away, when a star about 150 times as massive as the Sun collapsed on itself. The amount of energy output by this hypernova is estimated to be approximately equivalent to 2.5×1035 tons of TNT, which is roughly [13] the same amount of energy put out by all the stars in the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies in one minute. An interesting fact: Because hypernova are usually caused by very large stars, there is usually enough remaining material from the star to continue collapsing after the explosion. This remaining material will sometimes collapse until its volume [14] reaches zero. This means that many hypernova form black holes.
GRB 080916C
Type: Largest true explosion ever
The universe is a big place. Astronomically large objects are difficult to comprehend, and the largest known explosion, GRB 080916C is no different. GRB 080916C was a gamma-ray burst that was first recorded on September 16, 2008. The burst occurred about 12.2 billion light-years away and lasted 23 minutes, which is a very long duration for a gamma-ray burst. For those 23 minutes, the gamma-ray burst was putting out more energy than most galaxy superclusters. It is estimated that the blast had the equivalent amount of energy of 2×1038 tons of TNT. That’s the same as a trillion Tsar Bombas going off [15] every second for 110 billion years, or about 7,000 times the amount of energy that the Sun is expected to put out in its lifetime.
Big Bang
Type: Largest “explosion” ever
It’s only appropriate that [16] the Big Bang be number one. However, the Big Bang was technically not an explosion. An explosion occurs when matter [17] moves through space from a high pressure point to a low pressure point, and does so very, very rapidly. However, the Big Bang involved space itself expanding rapidly, not matter expanding through space. In fact, because the universe is still expanding, one could argue that the Big Bang is still occurring. Another misconception about the Big Bang Theory is that it does not explain how the universe began, or how matter and energy first came to be. It only explains how space rapidly expanded about 5.4×10-44 seconds after the universe began.
Name / 28 Nov, 2011 at 02:24 am
People still believe the Big Bang is a real thing? It makes zero sense. Might as well make a list of “Biggest Boat” and put Noah’s Arc[18] at the top.
Chris_C / 28 Nov, 2011 at 02:06 am
The list could have done with a bit more variety. The Halifax explosion could have been included (3KT). Two munitions ships collideed. They found a twenty ton anchour about 5 miles away
Andres / 28 Nov, 2011 at 11:37 am
Potentially stupid question: if the moon formed on the debris left after the collision of a Mars-sized object with the Earth (the giant impact hypothesis), could the impact classify as an explosion and therefore be the largest ever earthbound explosion (far surpassing the Cretaceous extinction event)? I’m just confused as to whether that would constitute an explosion or since both colliding objects were reasonably close in size, it would not be considered so, and if that’s the case, then where’s the line between a collision and a collision that causes an explosion.
psychosurfer / 28 Nov, 2011 at 06:25 pm
Not so stupid.
By Wikipedia’s definition of “explosion”, giant impact surely qualifies as one.
Good call.
mom424 / 28 Nov, 2011 at 06:01 am
None too shabby list this morning. Going to join the other Canadians; omitting the Halifax explosion is a big miss. It’s still the largest accidental explosion ever, caused a 60′ tsunami on the Halifax side of the harbour, killed over 2,000 people. They still find chunks during excavations and construction, all round the harbour.
Still, cool enough list anyway. Learned some new stuff. Good job.
Task 1 Find 3 to 5 (fragments of) sentences that you couldn’t have written (for linguistic reasons) and would’ve expressed in a different way. How would you have written them? Is your way correct/better/worse/etc in some way?
| A fragment from the text | My way of putting it | Comment |
2 Find and underline 3 to 5 (fragments of) sentences in the text where you can’t explain the grammar.
3 Find 3-5 useful collocations and write your own examples with them. Please, don’t go for specialized terms – choose something you can actually use in everyday speech.
1
4 Comprehension questions
This time there are no comprehension questions, but be prepared to give a short summary about each event and the most important points made in the comments. The aim here is to make your summaries short but informative, consisting of no more than two sentences.
Example: The Tunguska Event was a huge explosion in Russia. The majority of the scientific community believes that it was caused by a meteoroid that exploded in mid-air.
[1] Actually, there were 10 explosions in the original list, but I deleted two. Please follow the link in e-class if you’d like to read about FOAB (Father of All Bombs) and the (ironically named) Minor Scale – two of the biggest man-made explosions ever.
[2] to blow up: to explode
[3] to estimate: to guess the number without calculating it exactly
[4] TNT: a type of an explosive (тринитротолуол)
[5] the majority: большинство opp: the minority
[6] impact: the act of one object hitting another OR the force with which this happens. Example: craters made by mereorite impacts
[7] to occur: to happen
[8] remote: distant, faraway
[9] t o witness: быть свидетелем
[10] Just a reminder, as we’ve studied this. ash: пепел crop: урожай (crop failure: неурожай) famine: голод
[11] a ray: луч (Example: X-ray: рентген)
[12] to last: продолжаться
[13] approximately = roughly /'rʌflɪ/ = about = ~ (There are approximately 7 billion people on Earth at the moment.)
[14] volume: объём
[15] to go off (collocates with a bomb) - explode
[16] This is a kind of fixed phrase. It means ‘It’s extremely/entirely appropriate (= correct, good)’
[17] matter: вещество
[18] Noah’s Arc: Ноев ковчег
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