IOI
The United States Space Command (USSC) just confirmed that a meteor that struck Earth in January 2014 came from another solar system, making it the first interstellar object.
The USSC posted a document on Twitter earlier this month, confirming Harvard astronomers Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb’s findings that a space rock from another star system did contact Earth in 2014. The meteor’s velocity and trajectory suggested it was extrasolar in origin, according to the US space agency. The stony body, which measured about 1.5 feet across, “was undoubtedly an interplanetary object,” according to the report.
The latest finding, according to The Independent, pushes back the first confirmed discovery of an extrasolar visitor by three years. The famous interstellar object known as Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, has now become the solar system’s second interstellar visitor.
In 2019, Dr. Siraj and Dr. Loeb published a study on the scientific preprint server ArXiv arguing for the meteor’s extrasolar origin. With “99.999 percent certainty,” the scientists concluded that the meteor came from interstellar space. However, because the article relied on data from specific sensors utilised by the US Department of Defense, the two were unable to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal.
The US Space Command memo, which was signed by Joel Mozer, the chief scientist of US Space Operations Command, on March 1, 2022, may now help get the research published. The document reveals that Oumuamua was not the Solar system’s first interstellar visitor. It also implies that it, like the 2014 meteor, will not be the last.
Dr. Sirah and Dr. Loeb calculated in their research that Earth is struck by an extrasolar meteor once every ten years, with more than 450 million extrasolar meteors striking our planet so far. They even believe that interplanetary emissaries could bring proof of alien existence. According to the Independent, “potentially, interstellar meteors may carry life from another planetary system and mediate panspermia.”
Furthermore, rather than being an extrasolar asteroid, Abraham Loeb has proposed that Oumuamua could have been a sort of Alien technology. However, this is currently a minority viewpoint in the astronomy community. On the other side, Amir Siraj has claimed that he wants to organise an expedition to check if any bits of the 2014 meteorite can be collected from the ocean.
