Eastern Mediterranean Event

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The Eastern Mediterranean Event was a high-energy aerial explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, around 34°N 21°E (between Libya and Crete, Greece) on June 6th, 2002^[1]. This explosion, similar to a small atomic bomb, has been related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth. The object disintegrated and no part was recovered. Since it did not reach the surface and it exploded over the sea, no crater was formed.

Similar to the Tunguska event, the asteroid — about 30ft (slightly over 9 m) in diameter — exploded as a consequence of the energetic alteration of atmospheric entries^{[citation needed]}. It was detected by satellites and seismographic stations, with a calculated yield of about 26 kilotons of TNT (approximately double the yield of the Hiroshima bomb, comparable to a small modern nuclear bomb). Had it burst on a populated area, the consequences would have been catastrophic.

Additionally, India and Pakistan — nations with nuclear weapons — were in the middle of a military standoff and on high alert. It has been said that had the explosion happened in this area (the position of the Eastern Mediterranean Event and the disputed Kashmir territory are in the same latitude, thus being a matter of only a few hours by cause of Earth rotation), it could have been possibly taken for an attack, potentially triggering a nuclear war between these countries.^[1]^[2]^[3] However, since the Earth also travels around the Sun with an average orbital speed of 107,218 km/h, 3 hours earlier the Earth would have been about 300,000 km away from the intersection of its orbit with the projectile's orbit at the time that the South Asian region was rotated towards the projectile's path. So the projectile would have missed the Earth entirely by over 114 times the Earth's radius, about the distance to the Moon, and probably never even noticed by anyone but a few astronomers.