A mysterious meteor holds the secret of alien life?

It was a news that shocked the world. A meteor from space may be carrying traces of another civilization. Is it an ordinary rock, or is it an alien spaceship? Harvard theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb claims to have found the answer.

Recently, according to foreign media reports, Avi Loeb said he may have found evidence of alien life, and believes that it will fundamentally change humanity's understanding of the existence of extraterrestrial life, which will motivate us to invest resources in science and technology and go beyond the Earth. His team is analyzing debris from the 2014 crash, which is mostly small balls about 0.1 to 0.7 millimeters in diameter.

The object, named CNEOS2014-01-08, Loeb said it was falling to Earth faster than 95 percent of the stars near the Sun and was made of a strange steel and titanium alloy that was much stronger than any known natural material and even all 272 space rocks in NASA's catalog over the past few decades. Loeb believes the object could have come from another civilization, based on its speed and material. However, Loeb's claims have also been questioned by many scientists, who believe that the evidence is not enough.

An unusual shooting star

On January 8, 2014, a "fireball" from space passed through the Earth's atmosphere and crashed into the sea north of Manus Island, off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea. Its location, speed and brightness were recorded by US government sensors and quietly hidden in a database of similar events. That's where CNEOS 2014-01-08 comes in.

According to the database, the 0.9m-wide meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 216,000 km/h, and its path was very unique. The data was kept that way for five years and remained uncontroversial until 2019, when Loeb and his then-student Amir Siraj stumbled upon it. Based on the recorded speed and direction, Szilaghi believes the fireball was an extreme outlier.

So Loeb's "adventure" began.

Professor Loeb was chairman of the astronomy department at Harvard from 2011 to 2020 and is now the head of the Galileo project at the university, which is searching for ET. Since 'Oumuamua's visit to Earth in 2017, he has been fascinated by the search for aliens. 'Oumuamua is the first interstellar object known to pass through the solar system. 'Oumuamua is believed by a small number of scientists, including American astrophysicist Abraham, to be an alien spacecraft.

Between 2022 and 2023, Loeb spent £1.2 million to find 50 metal balls belonging to CNEOS2014-01-08 in the ground where they fell. Loeb's ocean Expeditions were organized through EYOS Expeditions and funded by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Charles E. Loeb. Hoskinson's grant of up to $1.5 million.

At Berkeley, Loeb conducted some of the initial inspections himself. Early detection revealed the presence of uranium and lead in the debris, and two spherules found along the expected path of the meteor appeared to be as old as the universe itself. Loeb estimates that the globules are billions of years old, about the age of the solar system.

At present, Loeb and his team are analyzing the remaining debris from the unknown object that fell to Earth in 2014. Loeb believes there are alien technological remnants on the debris, possibly modified, but he is not yet able to "quantify the object being studied."

Loeb said: "We are analysing the composition of the molten droplets that fell from the object. We got some interesting results, and we hope to make the scientific paper publicly available to everyone within a month or so."

Another interstellar object after 'Oumuamua?

Back in 2019, Loeb and Szilaghi also completed a paper on CNEOS 2014-01-08, which was initially rejected by the Astrophysical Journal, but the journal finally published the paper on November 2 of last year.

Based on CNEOS 2014-01-08's direction and speed at the time of impact (28 miles per second), Loeb and Szilagyi concluded that the fireball was moving too fast to be compared to an object bound by the Sun's gravity. This means that, like 'Oumuamua, it too must be an interstellar object. Interstellar objects are from outside the solar system, and it is generally believed that their bodies have a high probability of carrying many clues about extrasolar life.

Loeb and Szilaghi argued that interstellar objects would reflect the dynamics of local stars, and that most interstellar objects should originate within the local stellar velocity dispersion range relative to the local stationary standard (LSR). The object's data suggest that it is unusual, and that its parent planetary system may have a more unusual velocity relative to the LSR.

"Either way, this meteor appears to have an unusual origin. However, there is also the possibility that the parameters could be incorrectly determined." The paper says.

In response to the paper, in April, the U.S. Space Command announced in a memo that measurements of the fireball were accurate enough to infer its interstellar origin.

However, Loeb's claims about the meteor have also been questioned by many scientists, who say the evidence is not strong enough. Some scientists believe that the parameters are more likely to be wrong.