Mystery meteorite gives ‘tantalising glimpse of life beyond our solar system’
The UK’s leading UFO expert has described further evidence of interstellar material crashing to Earth as a ‘tremendous’ and ‘potentially Nobel Prize-winning’ discovery.
Nick Pope, who previously ran the UK government’s UFO project, was reflecting on findings by Harvard’s ‘alien-hunting’ professor Avi Loeb that suggest small spherules recovered from a meteorite originated from beyond the solar system – the first time any such materials have been studied.
During two weeks in June, Professor Loeb led a team of scientists on an expedition in the Pacific Ocean to find the spherules, formed when the meteorite IM1 passed through Earth’s atmosphere and crashed into the sea on January 8, 2014.
Hundreds of spherules were collected from the crash site and analysed alongside control materials to determine whether the materials were of local origin.
However, the rare abundance of beryllium (Be), lanthanum (La), and uranium (U), named BeLaU, not only suggest the spherules aren’t from Earth, but show they are unlike any other meteorite seen before.
Professor Loeb’s study has not yet been peer reviewed, but writing on his Medium blog he said: ‘Wonderful news! For the first time in history, scientists analysed materials from a metre-size object that originated from outside the solar system.’
Last year, US Space Command, part of the Department of Defense, confirmed IM1 was of interstellar origin due to its ‘unbound hyperbolic orbit’ – meaning it was not orbiting around the Sun, but merely passing by.
However, neither the government nor Professor Loeb have confirmed whether or not IM1 is natural in origin.
Discussing the spherules’ make-up, the professor said: ‘A more exotic possibility is that this unfamiliar abundance pattern, with uranium being nearly a thousand times more abundant than the standard solar system value, may reflect an extraterrestrial technological origin.’
Speaking to Metro.co.uk after the findings were released, broadcaster and journalist Mr Pope said: ‘While I’m not a scientist, this appears to be a tremendous discovery.
‘We already knew – from US Space Command – that IM1 was almost certainly of interstellar origin, and the fact that the anomalous results were obtained in runs [areas] that crossed IM1’s calculated path, and not in the control samples, seems to confirm the material is indeed interstellar – as does the unusual composition of the spherules in terms of beryllium, lanthanum and uranium.
‘This sounds like a potentially Nobel Prize-winning discovery in and of itself, and while further analysis will be needed to determine if the material is natural or artificial, the latter would prove that there are other civilizations out there, which would make this the most significant scientific discovery in history.
‘While we’ll have to await peer review, it does seem that this is a potentially world-changing discovery that gives us a tantalising glimpse of what a planet outside our solar system might be like.’
IM1, also known as CNEOS 2014-01-08 by Nasa’s Centre for Near Earth Object Studies, was detected by the Catalina Sky Survey travelling at 28 miles per second, much faster than other meteors.
Speaking earlier this month, Professor Loeb said the metallic beads, which measure up to 0.7mm in diameter, could be alien technology.
‘There is a chance that it’s artificial – that it’s a spacecraft,’ he said.
The professor’s interest in interstellar bodies was initially piqued by the arrival of Oumuamua, a curious cigar-shaped object that did not appear to look or behave like a normal comet.
Professor Loeb proposed it may be a ‘light sail’, a thin metallic sheet that acts like a sail, but using sunlight instead of wind, designed by an alien civilisation.
More recently however others have suggested that while Oumuamua was also of interstellar origin, hailing from outside the solar system, it was most likely a comet.
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