THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
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43.6667° N    70.2667° W  Altitude:  10 feet below sea level Founded
January 1970
2021-2022: CIX
"One day you'll be thankful things didn't work out the way you wanted them
to." - Anonymous


THE DAILY ASTRONOMER Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Meanwhile, in the South Pacific

January 8, 2014:
A blinding fireball blazed through the beautiful blue skies above Papua New
Guinea. This careening fragment of firmament-born flotsam, measuring just
1.5 feet in diameter, literally tore through the atmosphere at 130,000
miles per hour: a stunning, breakneck clip by meteoroid standards. Soon
after infiltrating Earth's airy blanket, this outer space interloper
scattered its remnants along the wonderfully warm waters of the South
Pacific, shards that have long since settled onto the remote seafloor. Such
is the fleeting fame of flaming celestial debris: an ephemeral display of
stunning pyrotechnics followed rapidly by obscurity.

Well, in this instance, the meteorite in question might not be condemned to
a neglected watery grave. In fact, it might well become one of the most
famous and most sought after meteorites of them all, at least in the
scientific community. Why would such a little piece of heaven suddenly
become a cause celebre? Because it seems highly likely to have been the
first known meteorite to have originated in another star system: expelled
from an interplanetary system within the Milky Way's star-rich disk.
Understand that its speed was far higher than that which any solar
system-based meteoroid could possibly have attained. Add to that, a wider
trajectory that differs considerably from the usual incoming meteoroid
paths. Yes, indeed, a piece of another star system, which was likely
tumbling through space for millions upon millions of years, eventually
infiltrated our solar system and perished in a blaze of fire above the
sublimely sultry South Pacific.

So, one must wonder: why the delay in this announcement?
Well, it wasn't until 2019 that the first study, led by Amir Siraj, a
theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard, was conducted. However, this paper
was neither peer-reviewed nor published because some of the necessary data
needed to verify their calculations was deemed "classified" by the US
government. That classification certainly put the kibosh on the whole
enterprise, until recently. On March 1st, an official with the United
States Space Command finally verified that, yes, the analysis conducted by
Siraj's team was sufficiently accurate to establish the object's
interstellar trajectory.

Now that the matter has become a matter for open debate, we can confidently
state that this 1.5 foot wide nugget is the first interstellar object we
have detected. That distinction had been conferred onto Oumuamua. Remember
Oumuamua? That interstellar projectile that rapidly zipped through our
solar system in 2017, inciting immense excitement around the world?! It was
cigar shaped, fast moving, wholly unexpected and was worth a total of about
four points in Scrabble. Well, that rock has come and gone. Even as you
read this article, it is moving inexorably through interstellar space. The
other now-known interstellar object has left its pieces right here on
Earth. Of course, the problem is that those pieces are now somewhere at the
bottom of a vast sea.

Despite the considerable logistical complications, it might be well worth
the effort to try to capture at least a minute fragment, if it is even
retrievable. It would be the very first material taken from another
planetary system. We know that we're a long way from sending vessels to
planets beyond our own solar system. Besides, such a mission would require
centuries.

Of course, it is possible that other interstellar meteoroids might crash
down on our planet. Their speeds and trajectories would attest to their
interstellar origin. Even if we can't plumb the depths of the Pacific to
extract any of this meteorite, others might follow. For now, we can derive
some joy from knowing that at least there is some corner of a foreign sea
that is forever a distant planet.


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