Billion Tonne Comet May Have Missed Earth By A Few

afree87 writes: "A re-analysis of historical observations at a Mexican observatory suggests Earth narrowly avoided an extinction event just over a hundred years ago. On 12th and 13th August 1883, an astronomer at a small observatory in Zacatecas in Mexico made an extraordinary observation. This month, Hector Manterola at the National Autonomous University of Mexico suggests these were fragments of a comet. "If they had collided with Earth we would have had 3275 Tunguska events in two days, probably an extinction event.""