Mighty Earth detonations scale up from massive nuclear bombs, to enormous volcanoes, to devastating asteroid impacts.
From early asteroid bombardment to the development of nuclear weapons, some massive detonations have battered our planet. But Earth's biggest explosion varies by the scale you're considering, from human-created to blasts from giant space rocks.
Biggest human blastsMinor Threat, an intentional blast in 1985, packed the most power of any nonnuclear explosion in history, Sam Rigby , an associate professor at the Blast and Impact Engineering Research Group at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told Live Science. A U.S. military operation designed to observe the outcomes of nuclear-scale blasts, Minor Threat used 4,700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil to produce a 4.7-kiloton TNT explosion.
Biggest terrestrial blastEarth itself has unleashed megaton-plus explosions for eons. The largest volcanic eruption in recorded history struck what is now Indonesia in 1815, when Mount Tambora blew off its 13,000-foot peak, according to NASA's Earth Observatory . By measure of thermal energy, Tambora detonated with the equivalent of 800 megatons of TNT , Shanaka de Silva , an Oregon State University volcanologist, told Live Science.
The Toba eruption likely caused tremendous levels of global cooling, which, in turn, affected growing seasons, de Silva said. Biggest blast from spaceThe largest explosion from an extraterrestrial source in recorded history occurred over Siberia in 1908: the Tunguska event. Scientists think a meteor exploded in the air, unleashing a 10- to 30-megaton explosion. The blast flattened more than 80 million trees, and people 300 miles away"reported 'deafening bangs,'" according to the Planetary Science Institute .
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