A scattering of tiny beads recovered off the coast of Papua New Guinea may have come from a rock that has quite an interesting history, from its origin several light years across space around a star that is not our sun. There is a nature.
meanwhile conclusion Not yet properly reviewed, but already reviewed cause controversy The findings have attracted attention in the scientific community, with researchers warning against reading too much into their analysis.
The meteor was tracked by a U.S. government satellite before disintegrating over the Pacific Ocean in 2014. Classified as CNEOS 2014-01-08 (or more simply IM1), the unusual velocity of this spherical meteor attracted interest as a potential missile from a distance.
For Avi Loeb, a prominent Harvard astronomer who founded the Galileo Project in 2021, this was an opportunity too good to pass up. Search signature Technology of extraterrestrial origin. In June of this year, he led an expedition to search for the remains of IM1.
Members of the project’s search team used a series of powerful rare-earth magnets to locate hundreds of tiny spherules, 0.05 to 1.3 millimeters in diameter, from sediments 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) below the surface, about 85 kilometers north of Manus Island. selected individually.
A preliminary assessment of 57 mineral objects by a team of researchers from Harvard University in the US suggests that at least some of them do not reflect the kind of chemistry expected in our solar system, leading to the passage of IM1. There is growing speculation that it may reach interstellar space before colliding with our planet’s atmosphere.
“This is a historic discovery, marking the first time humans have collected material from a large interstellar object, and we are very pleased with the results from this rigorous scientific analysis.” To tell American entrepreneur Charles Hoskinson helped fund an expedition to search for meteorite debris.
The analysis included determining the proportions of elements that make up the selected beads, which were cast from the surface of meteor debris that rolled through the atmosphere before the droplets fell. It is considered a thing.
Changes in iron isotopes were found to be consistent with a traumatic passage through the atmosphere, supporting the hypothesis that the spherules were not terrestrial in origin.
The particles are rich in the metals beryllium (Be), lanthanum (La), and uranium (U), making them unlikely to be the type of material found on planets near our own. In fact, this particular ratio has never been seen in any meteorite before, and this rarity suggests a birthplace far from our solar system.
This analysis contributes to the growing field of research on the exchange of rocky material between stars. In theory, an object orbiting one star could be thrown with enough force to be sent into the orbit of another star on a fairly regular basis.
But from a cosmic perspective, being “regular” can be a fairly unusual catch for human observation. We first confirmed a localized interstellar exchange in 2017, when the strange behavior of an asteroid called ‘Oumuamua caught our attention.
Discovering the remains of such a visitor on Earth’s surface would be quite an accomplishment for astronomers. Therefore, we need to be quite rigorous about the origin of a single specimen, going far beyond a preliminary chemical sniff test.
Like any breakthrough discovery, this one has garnered a lot of attention, with expert opinions ranging from mild skepticism to strong suspicion.
Given the Galileo mission’s goal of tracking not only material of extrasolar origin, but also traces of alien technology, the conversation goes something like this: should be polarizedattracts critical spectrum and optimistic views from a variety of disciplines within and outside academia.
The paper itself suggests that the high uranium content itself may indicate that some kind of alien technology is involved. Many in the research community will take a more conservative interpretation, at least until more is known about what we are dealing with here.
Further complicating matters, the expedition itself has drawn criticism from Papua New Guinean authorities, who claim team members may have entered the country illegally on this date. wrong type of visa.
As dramatic as it all may seem, science evolved as a practice of sifting useful ideas from the sediment of politics, personal beliefs, and fanciful assumptions.
We’ll have to wait a little longer before we can say with confidence that this sand actually comes from rocks that were once bathed in the warmth of another star. For now, we can only imagine the story it has to tell.
This study is currently available at: arXiv.org Waiting for peer review.