THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
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.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Daily Astronomer: