A new study recently published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports postulates that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam, which thrived in the Jordan Valley over three and a half thousand years ago, was destroyed by a powerful “cosmic airburst” in about 1,650 BC.
In their study, the researchers postulate that the "proposed airburst" was larger than the 1908 Tunguska event where a supposed bolide "detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb".
The scientists point to a "1.5-m-thick carbon-and-ash-rich destruction layer" at the archaeological site where the city once stood, with said layer apparently dating back to the period of time in question.
"We saw evidence for temperatures greater than 2,000 degrees Celsius," James Kennett, emeritus professor of Earth Science at UC Santa Barbara and one of the authors of the new research, said as quoted by SciTechDaily.
The team also suggests that “it is worth speculating that a remarkable catastrophe, such as the destruction of Tall el-Hammam by a cosmic object, may have generated an oral tradition that, after being passed down through many generations, became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis.”
"All the observations stated in Genesis are consistent with a cosmic airburst," Kenneth said as quoted by the media outlet, "but there’s no scientific proof that this destroyed city is indeed the Sodom of the Old Testament".