First confirmed interstellar meteor!

[Minmus Taster]

It's Official! CNEOS 2014-01-08 is the first known interstellar meteor!

What's more is that the Galileo Project is funding a mission to try and raise fragments of the meteor.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

That's pretty exciting stuff!
 

Loeb points out that as the meteor detection occurred in January of 2014, it predates the discovery of ‘Oumuamua by almost four years. Thus CNEOS-2014–01–08 “should be recognized as the first massive interstellar object ever discovered.”

...

Loeb and Siraj calculated the ram pressure exerted on CNEOS 2014-01-08 at the time the three flashes in the light curve occurred. Here I’ll again draw from Loeb’s email:

We translated the meteor light curve to a plot of the power released as a function of the ambient ram pressure. To our surprise, the disintegration of CNEOS-2014–01–08 occurred when the external ram pressure reached a value of 113 megapascals (MPa). This value is twenty times larger than the highest yield strength of stony meteorites and two times larger than that of the toughest iron meteorites. The first interstellar meteor could not have been a stony meteorite similar to most solar system asteroids.

CNEOS 2014-01-08: Sampling the Interstellar Meteor (centauri-dreams.org)

Edited November 4, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Beamer]

3 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

It's Official! CNEOS 2014-01-08 is the first known interstellar meteor!

What's more is that the Galileo Project is funding a mission to try and raise fragments of the meteor.

I wonder how they plan to find it, do they have GPS data from ships or sats? Considering how hard it can be to find an actively signalling black box, this seems a few orders of magnitude harder. It doesn't have a black box, right??

 

[Minmus Taster]

17 minutes ago, Beamer said:

I wonder how they plan to find it, do they have GPS data from ships or sats? Considering how hard it can be to find an actively signalling black box, this seems a few orders of magnitude harder. It doesn't have a black box, right??

 

I think the plan is to run over the ocean in a pattern like using a sonar for shipwrecks expect it's something that can see small fragments magnetic signatures.

[SunlitZelkova]

Having followed the Pacific WWII shipwreck hunting scene for a long time, I am aware of how difficult it can be to find stuff on the seabed. I wish them good luck in trying to find the stuff!

[Beamer]

It would be quite the find. Catching one as it passes through the solar system is nigh impossible, and returning a sample doubly so. If they can find pieces that actually crashed to earth it would be pretty huge indeed. I imagine they have some idea how to distinguish it from an earth rock, finding a needle in a haystack becomes easy if you have a big magnet. Or maybe they just trawl the area for rocks and sort through them after fishing them up, which might be a good method if they have fairly accurate coordinates of where it hit the water.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Beamer said:

I wonder how they plan to find it, do they have GPS data from ships or sats? Considering how hard it can be to find an actively signalling black box, this seems a few orders of magnitude harder. It doesn't have a black box, right??

 

There are infrasound sensors around the world that detect the airburst meteors and can locate the boom accurately enough to know where to sweep

21 minutes ago, Beamer said:

It would be quite the find. Catching one as it passes through the solar system is nigh impossible, and returning a sample doubly so. If they can find pieces that actually crashed to earth it would be pretty huge indeed. I imagine they have some idea how to distinguish it from an earth rock, finding a needle in a haystack becomes easy if you have a big magnet. Or maybe they just trawl the area for rocks and sort through them after fishing them up, which might be a good method if they have fairly accurate coordinates of where it hit the water.

 

Not sure how deep that area is, but as I understand it much of the seafloor is covered in deep silt. Newly fallen rocks should stand out as there any old rocks would be covered. As long as the meteor fragments didn't sink too deeply into the muck, but a magnetometer  would help

Edited November 5, 2022 by StrandedonEarth

[SunlitZelkova]

My biggest concern is not the technical ability to find them but whether or not the fragments have already been swept away by the current to some place else.

Also I didn't realize until now that "The Galileo Project" is intended to find evidence of alien life in direct connection with UFOs/UAPs. That makes me a little uneasy.

[DDE]

50 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Also I didn't realize until now that "The Galileo Project" is intended to find evidence of alien life in direct connection with UFOs/UAPs. That makes me a little uneasy.

Damn. Arvi Loeb again. Well, if what he does results in a net good for humanity, let him puff his sizeable ego.

[Gargamel]

I can already hear the uproar when they find a rock from 7 years ago that wasn't known about till now, compared to an airliner that they've been actively searching for for years. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

13 hours ago, Beamer said:

It doesn't have a black box, right

Loeb would not rule that out, outright - he's smart enough to be ambiguous when raising money (regardless of the provenance). 

12 hours ago, Beamer said:

I imagine they have some idea how to distinguish it from an earth rock

The quote is that the meteor was so much brighter than anything else ever seen that they anticipate it being far denser in metals than usual.  See also above - they're saying it is brighter and denser, and not ruling out 'made' rather than formed (wink wink). 

2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

fragments have already been swept away

Always a possibility - they did mention in one place using a magnetic sled - and the hope is that because they anticipate density, the pieces may remain localized. 

However - we are talking about years since the event.  So... Fair bet they won't find the needle 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

they find a rock from 7 years ago that wasn't known about till now

Spoiler

 

[Beamer]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Loeb would not rule that out, outright - he's smart enough to be ambiguous when raising money (regardless of the provenance).

I didn't realize he was involved but now that I know I'm sure we'll hear some claims that it's actively sending out signals soon I for one welcome our new black box building overlords!

 

[Exoscientist]

On 11/4/2022 at 9:07 PM, Beamer said:

I wonder how they plan to find it, do they have GPS data from ships or sats? Considering how hard it can be to find an actively signalling black box, this seems a few orders of magnitude harder. It doesn't have a black box, right??

 

Avi Loeb has received a $1.5 million private grant to conduct his search for the interstellar meteorite fragments beneath the ocean’s surface:

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/a-gift-from-a-silver-star-af2993e0169a

  Bob Clark

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

$1.5 million private grant

Man, I'm in the wrong business. 

Getting a chance to go to sea, work with deep diving rovers and trying to find that needle in the haystack? 

Plus, no one is shooting at you and you don't have to spend time practicing invading dictatorships?  Liberty in port is truly time off for R&R? 

I can only dream. 

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Man, I'm in the wrong business. 

Getting a chance to go to sea, work with deep diving rovers and trying to find that needle in the haystack? 

Plus, no one is shooting at you and you don't have to spend time practicing invading dictatorships?  Liberty in port is truly time off for R&R? 

I can only dream. 

Tonight's dreaming material is loaded

[kerbiloid]

The most expensive piece of bog iron evah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limonite