Recently declassified government documents confirmed that the first known stellar object crashed to Earth in 2014. A meteorite crashed in the South Pacific near Papua New Guinea, and researchers studying the fall have hypothesized that it could be an element from a location in space outside our immediate solar system. . Now, a document from the US Department of Defense confirms that this element was, in fact, from infinity.
By obtaining a paper published by Harvard researchers Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb, team John E. Shaw in a note earlier this month that the body was not out of our system. “[Space Command Chief Scientist] Dr. Joel Moser confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is accurate enough to indicate an interstellar trajectory,” Shaw wrote in the note.
6/ “I had the pleasure of signing a memorandum with Tweet embedChief Scientist, Dr. Moser, to confirm that a previously discovered interstellar object was indeed an interstellar object, an assertion that helped the broader astronomical community. ” pic.twitter.com/PGlIonCSrW
– US Space Command (@US_SpaceCom) April 7, 2022
The object itself is thought to have crashed over the Pacific Ocean, potentially scattering interstellar debris onto the watery land.
Siraj said in a call with Vice News. “One of the things I’m going to check – and I’m already talking to people – is if it’s possible to look at the ocean floor off the coast of Papua New Guinea and see if we can get any fragments.”
He added, “It’s going to be a big task, but we’re going to look at it very deeply because the possibility of getting the first piece of interstellar matter is exciting enough to check it out thoroughly and talk to all the experts in the world on ocean voyages to recover meteorites.”
Siraj co-authored the study with Loeb that initially proposed the question, and then reviewed it by appropriate government channels. The duo attempted to submit the study to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, but it was not published due to data and information withheld from the government.
“Given how rare interstellar meteorites are, extragalactic meteorites will be even rarer,” the astrophysicist continued. “But the fact of the matter is that, from now on, we won’t find anything unless we look for it. We as scientists may also take it upon ourselves to build a network as extensive as the US government’s network of sensors, and use it for science and the full use of the atmosphere.”
Cover image from Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images
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