2023-06-22 19:05:13
In January 2014, an interstellar object fell into the waters of the Pacific Ocean near Papua New Guinea. In search of material from another star system, a scientific expedition led by Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist from Harvard, set off. The researchers are going to collect everything that is left of the meteorite using a deep-sea magnetic sled. The team has already found some “anomalous” objects, but so far nothing unambiguously extraterrestrial.
“This is the most outstanding expedition in my scientific career,” Loeb admitted in a letter to publication Motherboard from the ship “Silver Star”. “It provides a unique opportunity to learn something regarding other technological civilizations in space by exploring the Pacific Ocean.”
Despite the lack of results, Loeb, a specialist in cosmology and astrophysics, is optimistic. He is convinced that his team is able to detect the IM1 interstellar meteorite, a mysterious 500 kg object that fell to Earth ten years ago and which he believes might be man-made.
Yesterday, the expedition discovered microscopic magnetic balls buried in volcanic ash at the bottom of the ocean. Analysis of the composition showed that they are mainly composed of iron with traces of magnesium and titanium, and do not contain nickel. Loeb called this combination “anomalous” compared to terrestrial alloys and known meteorites.
Loeb and his colleagues plan to continue magnetizing the ocean floor until June 29. Although the vessel has instruments for preliminary analysis, the scientists intend to send the entire catch to the laboratory for more thorough analysis.
The IM1 meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere on January 8, 2014 and was recorded by NASA’s Near Earth Object Research Center. A few years later, Loeb and his student Amir Siraj came to the conclusion that the high speed of the impact indicates that the object arrived in the solar system from another system. This hypothesis was later confirmed by the US Space Command, having studied classified data. The same method was used by Loeb and Siraj to identify the larger, presumably interstellar object IM2, which crashed off the coast of Portugal in March 2017.
Both meteorites were moving at over 177,000 km/h upon entering the atmosphere. For the objects of the solar system, such a speed is not typical. In addition, they appear to be stronger than regular space rocks.
One interstellar origin would be enough to interest IM1, but Loeb goes further and suggests that traces of technosinguras can be found on it – signs of the existence of highly developed extraterrestrial civilizations. The strength of the material from which IM1 and 2 are made is, in his opinion, a sign that they were fragments of some kind of man-made objects that arrived from distant stars. He hopes that careful study of the samples will provide an accurate answer to this question.
In recent years, two objects from interstellar space have come into the view of astronomers observing the solar system: the never-identified ‘Oumuamua and comet 2I/Borisov. Undoubtedly, there will be more. To study them more carefully, you need to send a research probe to intercept in time. An international team of scientists has described what such a mission might look like.
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