(Image Source: flickr @blawton73)

BY JIM FLINK

Could it have been the end of the world as we know it? Mexican astronomers say a comet came within a hair’s width -- astronomically speaking -- of ending the world in spectacular fashion. The date? August 12 and 13 -- 1883. Mexican astronomer Jose Bronilla reported seeing -- hundreds of fragments fly by his telescopic eye.

Wired U-K notes...upon further review... Mexican scientists are saying “whoa, did he see what we think he saw?”

“The team believes that the fragments would have careened past Earth as close as 600 to 8000km from the planet's surface, and the individual chunks would have been anywhere from 50 to 800km wide. What's more, the intact comet, before it spilled its guts over the sky, could have weighed a billion tonnes.”

So just how big is that? Daily Mail uses a “today” reference.

“...as well as being shockingly close to earth, the scientists believe that the comet could have had the same mass as the object that wiped out the dinosaurs - eight times the mass of Halley's comet.”

So why’d it take so long to figure it out? Well, the data wasn’t all that complete, and it wasn’t independently verified. Researchers at National Autonomous University of Mexico expounded on Bronilla’s calculations. Gizmodo explains.

“...Bronilla may have observed 447 objects over two days, but he was only counting for a total of 3.5 hours. To calculate the actual total number of fragments, the researchers at NUAM took the average number of fragments Bronilla saw per hour and multiplied it out over the entire two-day event. The total: a mind-slapping 3275 individual pieces, all of which they believe were...about 15 megatons, or 1000 times more powerful than Hiroshima.”

Some think this is more science fiction than science. Discover asks -- you mean that many meteors came within thousands of miles of earth -- and nobody noticed?

“This right there is enough for me to be extremely skeptical of this idea. When a comet breaks up, it spreads out. Even when intact, the material surrounding a comet can be tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers across! Claiming that a comet broke apart, yet managed to constrain its pieces to volume of space less than a few thousand kilometers across strains credulity.”

Still it’s a story gaining traction. Forbes sees bright lights coming from this one.

“This near-miss scenario...no doubt...would make for a great movie, but it’s also likely to provoke a great deal of skepticism.”

Still up in the air about this one? Decide for yourself.  We have the full 15 page analysis in our transcript section.