Alien-Hunting Astronomer Says There May Be a Second Interstellar Object On Earth In New Study (vice.com) 29
A pair of researchers who previously identified what may be the first known interstellar meteor to impact Earth have now presented evidence of a second object that could have originated beyond the solar system, before it burned up in our planet's skies and potentially fell to the surface, according to a new study. Motherboard reports: Amir Siraj, a student in astrophysics at Harvard University, and astronomer Avi Loeb, who serves as Harvard's Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science, suggest that a fast-moving meteor that burst into a fireball hundreds of miles off the coast of Portugal on March 9, 2017, is an "additional interstellar object candidate" that they call interstellar meteor 2 (IM2) in a study posted to the preprint server arXiv this week. The paper has not been peer-reviewed. In addition to their potential origin beyond the solar system, these objects appear to be extraordinarily robust, as they rank as the first- and third-highest meteors in material strength in a NASA catalog that has collected data about hundreds of fireballs.
"We don't have a large enough sample to say how much stronger interstellar objects are than solar system objects, but we can say that they are stronger," Siraj said in an email. "The odds of randomly drawing two objects in the top 3 out of 273 is 1 in 10 thousand. And when we look at the specific numbers relative to the distribution of objects, we find that the Gaussian odds are more like 1 in a million." This makes IM2 "an outlier in material strength," Loeb added in a follow-up call with Siraj. "To us, it means that the source is different from planetary systems like the solar system."
Loeb has attracted widespread attention in recent years over his speculation that the first interstellar object ever identified, known as 'Oumuamua, was an artifact of alien technology. Spotted in 2017, 'Oumuamua sped through the solar system and was up to a quarter-mile in scale, making it much larger than the interstellar meteor candidates identified by Siraj and Loeb, which are a few feet across. Loeb's claims of an artificial origin for 'Oumuamua have provoked substantial pushback from many scientists who do not consider a technological explanation to be likely. Loeb also thinks these interstellar meteor candidates could be alien artifacts, though he and Siraj present a mind-boggling natural explanation for the strangely robust objects in the study: The meteors may be a kind of interstellar shrapnel produced by the explosions of large stars, called supernovae. [...] Loeb, of course, is keeping his mind open. "We don't say, necessarily, that it is artificial," Loeb said in the call, referring to the supernovae explanation. But, he added, "obviously, there is a possibility that a spacecraft was designed to sustain such harsh conditions as passing through the Earth's atmosphere, so we should allow for that."
"We don't have a large enough sample to say how much stronger interstellar objects are than solar system objects, but we can say that they are stronger," Siraj said in an email. "The odds of randomly drawing two objects in the top 3 out of 273 is 1 in 10 thousand. And when we look at the specific numbers relative to the distribution of objects, we find that the Gaussian odds are more like 1 in a million." This makes IM2 "an outlier in material strength," Loeb added in a follow-up call with Siraj. "To us, it means that the source is different from planetary systems like the solar system."
Loeb has attracted widespread attention in recent years over his speculation that the first interstellar object ever identified, known as 'Oumuamua, was an artifact of alien technology. Spotted in 2017, 'Oumuamua sped through the solar system and was up to a quarter-mile in scale, making it much larger than the interstellar meteor candidates identified by Siraj and Loeb, which are a few feet across. Loeb's claims of an artificial origin for 'Oumuamua have provoked substantial pushback from many scientists who do not consider a technological explanation to be likely. Loeb also thinks these interstellar meteor candidates could be alien artifacts, though he and Siraj present a mind-boggling natural explanation for the strangely robust objects in the study: The meteors may be a kind of interstellar shrapnel produced by the explosions of large stars, called supernovae. [...] Loeb, of course, is keeping his mind open. "We don't say, necessarily, that it is artificial," Loeb said in the call, referring to the supernovae explanation. But, he added, "obviously, there is a possibility that a spacecraft was designed to sustain such harsh conditions as passing through the Earth's atmosphere, so we should allow for that."
It doesn't help... (Score:1)
Quick skim... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
harvard.
a search for meteor impacts on planet earth.
the wonder of discovery.
i think i see an ig nobel here
Re: (Score:2)
From the range of things he opines on, I suspect he's (1) got tenure, and (2) enjoys the publicity game. Neither of which are hanging offences (in any country I know of).
I en
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Extraordinary claims ... slim evidence (Score:1)
Re: Extraordinary claims ... slim evidence (Score:2)
Well, given how a large segment of the population has doubts about science and its methods, job prospects might be rare. Why deny them a chance of making money when girls on FansOnly make upwards of $2M/month?
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Re: (Score:1)
I used to enjoy the shows of one gal who was paying her way through university with her webcam. Not unusual, certainly. Then she graduated, and announced she was going offline for a couple months because she was getting posted to a remote location... as a field geologist for the USGS. After that initial posting, she returned to her webcam and its income, and also completed her one year contract with the USGS. She webcammed from a hotel room in Hawaii because she had been posted there to monitor the volcano
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And you should get the fuck off the science department lawn.
Attracted widespread attention (Score:2)
... on social media and in magazines the New Yorker, anyway. Let us know when these are actually peer reviewed and published somewhere reputable - links to arXiv don't mean much.
Prometheus (Score:2)
Is this just the Prometheus Theory?
Just to be very very clear, I'm not saying it's al (Score:3)
But can you prove that it isn't aliens?
Re: Just to be very very clear, I'm not saying it' (Score:1)
Yes. Here's the telemetry from the jewish space laser proving it blew up that regular not interstellar meteor for target practice.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But can you prove that it isn't aliens?
This is science not math. You can't prove anything.
Bad stats (Score:5, Insightful)
Two items does not make a coincidence - he's already used up one degree of freedom in deciding the peculiar attribute is high strength, so the odds of the second being noteworthy is just 1/273 - or in this case shall we say "in the top 5" (since you must decide criteria a priori), in which case they're 5/273. or a smidge under 2%; interesting but not yet exciting.
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Material strength (Score:1)
Anything originating from beyond the solar system has probably been flung out of wherever it originated by an extrordinarily powerful explosion ( eg supernova) so surely on the really strong materials would survive that as opposed to being vapourised or turned to dust?
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Nothing so violent is needed. A small(ish) object can be launched out of a solar system perfectly fine by the interaction between gas giants.
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Indeed. There are probably billions or trillions of rogue planets in our galaxy (i.e. planets that were ejected from their original system because of gravitational slingshot). The number of smaller objects is probably several orders of magnitude higher.
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Nothing so violent is needed. A small(ish) object can be launched out of a solar system perfectly fine by the interaction between gas giants.
The Voyager probes [stackexchange.com] are good example of this.
It's the damn bugs (Score:2)
The bugs are trying to throw rocks at us! Time to go to war...
Hail Heinlein
Listen to the author ... (Score:3)
Amir Siraj was interviewed on this pre-print [youtube.com] by the Event Horizon Youtube channel.
Basically, the detection is via a US military network that is designed to detect ballistic missiles.
The speed and trajectory of the object says it is from outside the solar system.
There is a mission to try to recover parts of that object form the seabed.
Isotope ratios and such will tell us more about it.
It's not ... (Score:2)
I'm not saying.. (Score:2)
It's never aliens (Score:1)
Oumuamua was just 2300 AU from the Sun in the year 1605. One light-year is about 63k AU. Even if this came from the nearest star that might support advanced life, those would have to be some very patient, long-lived aliens.
Call us when something comes in at a significant fraction of c, or is observed to be decelerating, inserting itself in to an orbit, and emitting signals.
He ought to shut up (Score:2)
A supposed man of science shouldn't immediately proclaim that things he doesn't understand are 'aliens'. Either he's a nut or he's a fame whore.
And in either case he should shut up.
Call me (Score:2)
Call me when the alien hunter brings me the carcass of an alien.