The US space agency seems to confirm the claim that a meteorite that came from outside our solar system had entered the Earth’s atmosphere, but some scientists and NASA are not yet convinced, as reported by kathimerini.gr.
The object, a small meteorite with a diameter of only 0.45 meterscrashed into Earth’s atmosphere on January 8, 2014, after traveling through space at speeds in excess of 210,000 km / h – a number well above the average speed of meteorites orbiting the solar system, according to two Harvard researchers.
The authors of the 2019 study claim that the meteorite’s excessive speed indicates interstellar origin and that the object probably came from inside a planetary system or a star in the dense disk of our Galaxy.
However, the document was not accepted for publication. Officials noted the lack of sufficient details to verify the meteorite claim. “We thought this was a lost cause,” said one of the researchers, Amir Shiraz, an Harvard undergraduate student studying astrophysics. Without more detailed data, he admitted, it was difficult “to understand whether the object was really interstellar or not.”
6 / “I had the pleasure of signing a memo with @ussfspoc‘s Chief Scientist, Dr. Mozer, to confirm that a previously-detected interstellar object was indeed an interstellar object, a confirmation that assisted the broader astronomical community. ” pic.twitter.com/PGlIOnCSrW
– US Space Command (@US_SpaceCom) April 7, 2022
As it turned out, the truth was out there. Last month, the US space agency released a memo to NASA scientists stating that data from satellite missile warning sensors “were accurate enough to indicate an interstellar orbit” for the meteorite. This publication was the culmination of a three-year effort by Mr. Shiraz and a well-known Harvard astronomer, Avi Leb.
Many scientists, including those of her NASA, say the military has not yet released enough data to confirm the interstellar origin of the meteorite. But it was not the only meteorite information released. The military also provided NASA with decades of secret military data on the brightness of hundreds of other objects.
“It’s an unusual degree of visibility for a set of data coming from this world,” said Matt Daniels, assistant director of space security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who worked to make the data public. “We are in a period of excitement and renaissance in space programs in general, and in the midst of that, I think thinking leaders in many places have said, ‘You know, now is a good time to do that.'”
In recent years, there have been other similar passages, such as the Oumuamua – now a famous cigar-shaped object, which also moves very fast to have come from our solar system. Unlike the 2014 meteorite, Oumuamua was located far from Earth and is already rapidly moving away from the solar system, according to NASA.
Dr. Leb had attracted attention, arguing that the Oumuamua was a technological construct, while other astronomers are still debating what kind of object it was.
In 2019, Borisov, an asteroid the size of the Eiffel Tower, became the second confirmed interstellar visitor. A part of it broke in 2020 after passing through the sun.
While data from classified military satellites may not have helped study these interstellar visitors, they could help academic researchers study objects closer to Earth. They could also help NASA in its federal role of protecting planet Earth from killer asteroids. And that’s the goal of a new agreement with the US Space Command, which aims to help NASA’s Office of Planetary Defense better understand what happens when space rocks reach the atmosphere.
Dr. Daniels in the White House played a key role in Harvard researchers’ efforts to secure a public statement from Space Administration. After a scientific publication was rejected by “The Astrophysical Journal Letters”, Dr. Leb said he contacted a colleague at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who eventually put him in touch with Dr. Daniels. The White House official then spoke about the meteorite in 2020, with the Space Administration launching government efforts to release military satellite data about the alleged interstellar meteorite. “I knew this was going to be a challenge, and so it was a constant discussion for quite some time,” he said. Daniels.
The sharing of classified data by military satellites with astronomers has led to significant scientific discoveries in the past.
A team of satellites developed by the United States in the 1960s to detect hidden nuclear explosions on Earth has mistakenly become the main instrument used to make the first extraterrestrial gamma-ray burst detection. The explosions appeared on satellites, codenamed Vela, as individual energy explosions, confusing analysts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
However, while the arguments regarding the gamma explosions were largely resolved later, the case of Mr. Shiraz and Dr. Leb about interstellar meteorite is still controversial.
While many – including two Harvard astronomers – have interpreted the Space Administration statement as confirmation that the meteorite is interstellar, some astronomers believe more data is needed to support the claim.
“The data are not enough. The scientific results are being published, they are not secret, “said Maria Hazdukova, a researcher at the Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, which studies meteorites and examined the incident. “I do not say I do not believe it, but if I do not have evidence I can not confirm it,” he added.
In an announcement by NASA stated that “the short duration of the data makes it difficult to determine definitively whether the origin of the object was indeed perverse”.
Harvard researchers had a different view. “Five seconds is enough time. It does not matter the duration, but the quality of the data collected. “In five seconds you can do a lot, in terms of instruments and measurements,” said Dr. Leb, who together with Mr. Shiraz plans to resubmit the study to The Astrophysical Journal Letters. And the 2014 meteorite data now coming from military service can help in their argument.
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