Could the Taurid Meteor Shower Have Caused the Great Flood?

The Taurid meteor stream is a well-documented meteor shower linked to Comet Encke. It is known for producing large meteors and bolides (exploding fireballs). Both the Talmud and Genesis describe a flood tied to the heavens, which raises the question of whether a Taurid impact event could have played a role.

The Talmud connects the start of the Flood to the Pleiades, called Kimah in Hebrew:

When the Holy One, Blessed be He, sought to bring a flood into the world, He took two stars from Pleiades and brought the flood upon the world.

Talmud, Berakhot 59a (William Davidson Edition, Sefaria)

In the Talmud, the Flood begins when God takes two stars from the Pleiades.

For more on the Pleiades, see The Pleiades and Orion.

1. The Taurid Stream and Catastrophic Earth Events

• Earth meets the Taurid stream twice a year. The night-time Northern and Southern Taurids peak in October and November. In June and July Earth crosses the stream again, but these showers (the Beta Taurids and Zeta Perseids) come from the daytime side and cannot be seen in the usual way.
• The Southern Taurids come from Comet Encke, and the Northern Taurids from the asteroid 2004 TG10, possibly a large fragment of Encke.
• The stream is believed to contain large asteroid fragments, possibly remnants of a much larger cometary body that broke up.
• Some researchers suggest that Earth passes through denser streams of Taurid debris every few thousand years, leading to higher impact probabilities.

2. Did a Taurid Impact Occur ~12,000 Years Ago?

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, first set out by Richard Firestone and colleagues in 2007, proposes that Earth was hit by a comet or its fragments around 12,900 years ago. Some supporters link the event to the Taurid stream. According to the hypothesis, the impact triggered:

• The Younger Dryas cooling event (about 12,900 to 11,700 years ago)
• Possible cometary explosions in the atmosphere (similar to Tunguska, June 30, 1908, which the astronomers Duncan Steel and Bill Napier have linked to the Beta Taurids)
• Massive wildfires and megafaunal extinctions
• Abrupt climate shifts that could have melted ice sheets, causing severe flooding

Some hypothesized impact sites linked to the Taurid stream include:

• Abu Hureyra, Syria: evidence of extreme heating (about 12,800 years ago)
• Greenland crater (Hiawatha Crater): an impact structure under the ice, once proposed as a Younger Dryas site. It has since been dated to about 58 million years ago, in the late Paleocene, which rules it out.
• Carolina Bays: unusual elliptical depressions that some have attributed to secondary impacts. Geologists generally dismiss impact origins for lack of ejecta, impactors or a source crater.

These events fall at the end of the Pleistocene, when many large animal species went extinct and human societies may have faced great upheaval.

The hypothesis is disputed. Most specialists reject it, citing a lack of clear evidence and results that could not be reproduced.

What Makes Water Come Out of the Earth?

Genesis describes the start of the Flood:

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Genesis 7:11 (KJV)

Genesis says the waters came from below and from the sky on the same day.

For water to erupt from beneath the Earth, there are several possible scientific mechanisms:

1. Seismic Activity & Tectonic Shifts

• A large impact (from a meteor or comet) could trigger earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
• Tectonic shifts can cause submarine fissures to open, releasing water from underground reservoirs.
• Impact events could also cause hydrothermal disruptions, where trapped superheated water is suddenly released.

2. Tsunamis from Oceanic Impacts

• If a Taurid fragment impacted an ocean, it would displace vast amounts of water, sending megatsunamis across continents.
• Such events could explain rapid flooding over large landmasses.

3. Rapid Ice Sheet Melting

• A large meteor or multiple airburst explosions over the ice sheets (such as those covering North America and Eurasia) could lead to:
  • Sudden melting of glacial ice
  • Release of massive freshwater floods
  • Disruption of ocean currents, altering climate
• The Missoula Floods (Glacial Lake Outburst Floods) provide a historical example of how sudden ice dam collapses caused catastrophic water release.

4. Subglacial Water Release

• Some scientists suggest that underground reservoirs of water trapped beneath ice sheets could have been suddenly released due to impact heating.
• This would fit the idea of the “fountains of the great deep” being broken up.

Does This Explain the Talmudic and Biblical Flood?

• If the Taurid meteor stream was denser 12,000 years ago, Earth may have faced increased impact risk.
• A fragment impact on land or in an ocean could have:
  • Triggered massive tsunamis and earthquakes
  • Melted ice sheets, causing global flooding
  • Disrupted the atmosphere, leading to extreme rainfall
• The Talmud’s account of God taking two stars from Kimah could represent a celestial disturbance, such as a fragmenting comet, visible in the sky before the disaster.
• The sequence in Genesis (fountains of the deep, then rain) suggests an initial seismic or impact-driven water release, followed by extreme atmospheric reactions.

A Possible Celestial Flood Event?

Supporters of the idea see the Taurid meteor stream as a candidate for a flood-triggering celestial event, for these reasons:

1. Taurid impacts may have triggered earthquakes, tsunamis, and glacial floods.
2. Comet or asteroid fragments could have disrupted Earth’s weather and hydrological systems.
3. The timing (12,000 years ago) matches geological and mythological records of a great flood.
4. Ancient traditions preserved celestial and hydrological disasters, possibly reflecting real historical events.

How Long Would the Fragments Be Visible in the Night Sky?

If two large comet or asteroid fragments were visible before impact and appeared to originate from the Pleiades (Kimah), the duration of their visibility would depend on several factors:

1. Factors Affecting Visibility

A. Distance and Approach Speed

• If these fragments were part of the Taurid meteor stream, they would be traveling at an average velocity of 27–30 km (16.8–18.6 miles)/s relative to Earth.
• However, if they were large objects (hundreds of meters to kilometers in size), they might have been:
  • Long-period comets with highly elliptical orbits
  • Captured fragments slowly moving inward over centuries
  • Part of a disintegrating parent body, increasing in brightness over time

B. Size and Reflectivity (Albedo)

• Small meteoroids (a few meters) are not visible until they enter Earth’s atmosphere.
• Larger objects (1 km (0.62 miles) or more) could reflect enough sunlight to be visible for years or even centuries before impact.

C. Orbital Changes and Earth Interception

• If the fragments came from a disrupted comet, they could have been visible as a growing stream of debris for centuries before specific fragments approached Earth.
• If they were in Earth-crossing orbits, they would gradually appear brighter over decades or centuries as they neared impact.

Estimated Visibility Duration

Based on observations of long-period comets and Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), the estimates are as follows:

Scenario 1: Large Comet Fragments from a Parent Body (Like Encke)

• If these fragments were slowly breaking off from a larger Taurid progenitor, they might have been visible as a faint cometary debris cloud for hundreds to thousands of years.
• As they moved closer to Earth, individual fragments would become visible to the naked eye for 10–50 years before impact.

Scenario 2: A Pair of Incoming Asteroids (Like 2015 TX24 & 2005 UR)

• If two large asteroids were drifting toward an eventual Earth impact, they would only become visible a few years or decades before impact, depending on their reflectivity.
• A 1-km (0.62 miles)-wide asteroid would be visible to the naked eye for ~5–10 years before arrival.
• If the asteroids were active comets, shedding gas and dust, they could be visible for several centuries.

Scenario 3: A Long-Period Comet Disintegrating

• If the incoming bodies were from a long-period comet (e.g., 1,000+ year orbit), they could have been seen in the sky for centuries as a slow-moving, fragmenting object.

Historical Precedents: How Long Have We Seen Similar Objects?

This scenario can be compared with known comets and NEOs:

• Comet Hale-Bopp (1997): Visible to the naked eye for 18 months.
• Great Comet of 1811: Visible to the naked eye for about 260 days, the record until Hale-Bopp.
• Comet NEOWISE (2020): Visible for several months.
• Scholarly estimates of ancient impact events suggest that large, Earth-bound objects could have been visible for decades before striking.

Conclusion: Likely Visibility Timeframe

If the two fragments from Kimah (Pleiades) were large enough:

• A few decades to centuries: If they were slowly drifting Earthward from a comet breakup.
• 5–50 years: If they were individual asteroid-like bodies on Earth-crossing orbits.
• Centuries: If they were part of an incoming cometary stream gradually breaking apart.

For flood traditions from other cultures, see Flood stories.