Story by Samyarup Chowdhury •
Harvard physicist Avi Loeb and his team claim that the tiny fragments they found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean originated outside our solar system.
This would be the first time someone has discovered an object from outside our galaxy on Earth, Knewz.com has learned.
The fragments of the© Knewz (CA)
Back in 2014, a meteor-like object crashed off the coast of Papua New Guinea, thus breaking apart into tiny fragments that now lie under the Pacific Ocean, as per Daily Mail.
Professor Loeb and his team are studying the tiny fragments, and he has not ruled out the possibility that they could also be the remnants of an alien craft.
Professor Loeb and his team aren't ruling out the possibility of the© Knewz (CA)
In a post on Medium from January 2023, Professor Loeb discussed in detail his plans regarding "The Galileo Project," the expedition to study the fragments of the interstellar object that crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
Related video: Searching for evidence of interstellar objects (NBC News)Duration 7:17 View on Watch
"We have a boat. We have a dream team, including some of the most experienced and qualified professionals in ocean expeditions. We have complete design and manufacturing plans for the required sled, magnets, collection nets and mass spectrometer. And most importantly, today we received the green light to go ahead," he says about the $1.5 million expedition.
As per Daily Mail, the 700 or so tiny metallic spheres his team analyzed contain compositions that do not match any natural or man-made alloys of Earth.
"I was thrilled when Stein Jacobsen [the one who performed the composition analysis of the spherules] reported to me about it based on the results in his laboratory... Stein is a highly conservative and professional geochemist with a worldwide reputation. He had no bias or agenda whatsoever and expected to find familiar spherules with solar system composition. But the data showed something new, never reported in the scientific literature. Science is guided by evidence," Professor Loeb said in a statement to the outlet.
Analysis has shown that the fragments are rich in Beryllium, lanthanum, and uranium, in addition to a low content of elements that bind to iron, like Rhenium - one of the rarest elements found on Earth. However, the findings are yet to answer whether the fragments are artificial or natural in origin. The Harvard physicist says that it is the next question his research aims to answer.
“People say ‘Oh, it’s just a space rock. We saw so many space rocks in the past. What’s new about it? It’s the first one that came from outside the solar system and, second, it’s tougher than 99.7 percent of everything we have seen," Professor Loeb says in a statement to The Harvard Crimson. "We should be able to tell what its origin is — whether it’s an artificial alloy, for example, if it were a spacecraft of another technological civilization,” he adds.
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