Preview of The Hammer of God Summary:

Brief expositions of two prior Earthmeteorite collisions ground the novel's main premise in historical reality: the Tunguska, Siberia impact of June 30, 1908, and prehistoric reality, an impact at Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico sixty-five million years ago.

A near miss is cited in the chapter "Oregon 1972." However, the specific location from which a tourist captured the passage of the meteor on film is said to be "Grand Teton National Park," which lies in the State of Wyoming — leaving the reader to ponder whether the meteor's lowest point in trajectory came while it passed over Oregon, or whether the author inadvertently relocated a national park.

Clarke's acknowledgments cite additional strikes and near misses, and the published concerns of government agencies and academic astronomers which have led to discussions of a possible Spaceguard Survey intended to identify moving bodies in space which could pose a serious threat to...