Dante Alighieri's iconic 14th-century poem Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, may have been inspired by an asteroid impact, according to a groundbreaking new theory presented at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2026 in Vienna.
Theory Links Satan to Asteroid
Researcher Timothy Burbery, an English professor at Marshall University, proposes that Dante imagined Satan as a high-velocity impactor, similar to an asteroid, striking the Southern Hemisphere and tunneling to Earth's centre. This impact forces the Northern Hemisphere to retreat, forming a bottom-up crater that becomes the core of hell, while displaced earth creates the mountain of Purgatory.
Parallels with Chicxulub
The event described in the poem appears to parallel the Chicxulub asteroid collision, which ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Burbery notes that Satan's arrival follows a planetary chain reaction, tunneling to the core and generating the central peak of Mount Purgatory, much like the Chicxulub impact.
According to Burbery, Dante treats Satan as an oblong, asteroid-sized body reminiscent of the interstellar object Oumuamua. The nine circles of hell are not merely symbolic but may describe the concentric morphology found in impact basins across the solar system, from the Moon to Venus.
Intuitive Physics
Burbery argues that Dante intuitively mapped the physics required for a massive object to reach maximum compression at Earth's core. "Although Dante was not a scientist, he was one of the first persons in history to think through the physical effects of a large mass slamming into the earth at high speed," he says.
The theory suggests that mythology raised awareness of physical threats to the planet long before the scientific formalization of asteroid impacts. "In Dante's vision, the devil's size and velocity are such that when he lands, he instantly creates hell, a massive, circular, terraced crater that reaches to the centre of the earth," Burbery adds.
The modern study of meteors was not firmly established until the 19th century; prior to that, meteors were seen as merely atmospheric phenomena and were not connected to rocks falling from the sky.
