Did A Comet Trigger The Great Chicago Fire?

Alien54 writes "Perhaps it was not Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern that sparked the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed the downtown area and claimed 300 lives. New research lends credence to an alternative explanation: The fire, along with less-publicized and even more deadly blazes the same night in upstate Wisconsin and Michigan, was the result of a comet fragment crashing into Earth's atmosphere."

Comments

the flaming snowball theory?

[LeninZhiv]

So just how big does a chunk of frozen methane have to be in order to make it all the way to the earth's surface? This is way outside my area of expertise, but I'd have to imagine frozen methane melts pretty darn quick. Apparently comets are bigger than I thought, if a minor broken-off chunk of one can make it all the way down here without melting.

Re:the flaming snowball theory?

[ChopsMIDI]

The comet split in two around Jupiter and that one of the halves hit earth while the other continued on it's other tragectory.

The small fragments that could have started the fire probably didn't make it throuh the atmosphere alone, but rather broke off the comet just before collision. Those smaller pieces inigiting fires in Wisconsin and Michigan.

This would explain how small pieces could make it all the way to the surface.

According to the article, that night alone, a total space the size of Connecticut was burned. That's a pretty significant chunk of land

Re:the flaming snowball theory?

[pyr0]

The interesting thing about objects that enter the atmosphere is that the rate at which the outer shell ablates away from friction exceeds the rate at which heat conducts through the material. If a chunk of such a comet were to reach the surface without breaking up during the process and land nearby, you could immediately find it see (and touch if you really are up for touching *really* *really* cold stuff) that the object was still frozen.

Re:Don't rule out the cow!

[Tablizer]

I thought the cow story was made up by a reporter. It is a 19th century urban legend.

Shows how much we have grown: Our 21st century urban legends involve comets and meteors instead of farm animals. Hmmm. I wonder if this extrapolates to sexual preferences :p

Re:Don't rule out the cow!

[uncoveror]

There is a lawsuit against attorney Kevin O'Leary, an heir of Mrs. O'Leary over that fire. Maybe he should bring the comet theory to the court's attention. He certainly doesn't want to be held responsible for the actions of a cow long before he was born, especially if the cow is innocent.

Re:Read that a couple of years ago

[shadowbearer]

I'd read bits and pieces of this theory over the last couple decades, but never saw any kind of coherent whole.

It's fascinating, and quite plausible, especially when you consider how rapidly the hugely widespread fires took place. I live in an area that experiences annual forest fires, and it's just not plausible that a simple localized fire could have started the whole Chicago area conflagaration. Not even California fires spread that fast.

(from article)

it also would explain the cause of the fires blazing north of Chicago, which wiped out 2,000 people and burned 4 million acres of farm and prairie lands.

and

In all, over a 24-hour period, an area of land the size of Connecticut was burned

His explanation makes a lot of sense to me. Hats off to Mr. Wood, this is brilliant. (danged puns! :)

I'd love to see his orbital analysis. Anyone know if it's available on the web? A search didn't reveal anything (probably just me not knowing what to ask)

SB
PS- Didn't Astronomy magazine do an article on this once? Or was it S&T?

other unexplained things about the Chicago fire

[CoronalPendragon]

It is worth noting that Chicago fire was not typical in many ways. The fire was unusually hot. One factory that burned melted pig iron 200 feet away. Buildings burned on a timescale of minutes, it was reported. Unlike your normal everyday fire, nothing was left half-burned. It also burned INTO the wind, which is contrary for usual fires. A guy in the New York Evening Post wrote, "buildings far beyond the line of fire, and in no contact with it, burst into flames from the interior". The other facts I noted may be referenced in The Annual Record of Science and Industry for1876, pg. 84 and History of the Great Conflagration Sheahan & Upton, Chicago, Illinois, 1871

Re:other unexplained things about the Chicago fire

[subtropolis]

This article at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist discusses the effects of firestorms and how one could be expected to behave within a city. Granted, the author is writing about a 300-kiloton weapon being detonated over the city, but you get the drift.

Re:Disney vs. Discovery

[house15]

Dang. If you ask me, that's even worse. I subscribed to Discover for years. It had great science without having to slog through pages of complicated math (to defend myself, I was in high school at the time). I picked it up in an airport a couple of years ago and was so disappointed at how crappy and commercial and boring it had become. Now I know why.

Thanks tepples.

Sound plausible considering...

[weeboo0104]

That meteorite fragments hit Chicago last June(?). My windows was facing away from the city, but I was still able to see a bright flash which I thought was lightning at first. Anybody else in the Chicago area remember the meteorite last year?