Fireball over Papua New Guinea: Interstellar meteor impact confirmed

Fireball over Papua New Guinea
The impact of interstellar meteorites has been confirmed

04/14/2022 11:33 AM

Meteor actually attracted so much attention in 2014 that the US Department of Defense got involved. The data on the orb was not released until eight years later. But what is the mysterious fireball?

It was a meteorite that burned up in Earth’s atmosphere on January 8, 2014. This in itself was not unusual, as it happens regularly. Instead, it was the insanely high speed and origin that called the US Space Command into action. At a speed of up to 210,000 kilometers per hour, the meteorite, which was only about half a meter in size, fell into the atmosphere over Papua New Guinea and burned up there in the form of a fireball.

This tremendous speed indicates that this celestial body could not have come from our solar system, because objects within our solar system usually do not move very fast. In retrospect, the meteorite will also be the first recorded object to enter our solar system from interstellar space — even before the cigar-shaped Oumuamua. The latter visited our solar system only in 2017.

Then-student and now astrophysicist Amir Siraj and Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University examined this meteorite. Searching around أوumuamua cause a stir. But information from NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) database was missing to confirm the discovery. This monitors the sky for any dangers from space, but is also used by the Department of Defense to detect potential nuclear explosions at an early stage. The data was still being closed and Siraj and Loeb were unable to obtain any confirmation of the notes. It is assumed that the data release will take 8 years.

Late confirmation

At the beginning of March, the US Department of Defense confirmed the discovery of the two scientists in a note. The memo was recently published via the SMS service Twitter. Siraj now plans to republish his work for examination so that other scientists can take part in the study of the extraordinary organism.

And although the chance is very small, an expedition to the South Pacific cannot be ruled out, As Siraj explains to Vice. However, this remains to be discussed, because the chance of finding small fragments on the sea floor is negligible. Probably the first being from another star system in the hands of a human.