Five years ago, an interstellar object collided with Earth, but no one noticed

In October 2017, astronomers discovered the first inhuman history, the interstellar object, which turned out to be in the solar system - it became the asteroid Oumuamua, about the origin of which there are still a lot of rumors. It turns out that people have come across objects from distant galaxies before, but simply did not notice this - at least, according to researchers at Harvard University. According to them, the meteor collided with the Earth’s atmosphere in January 2014 was also an interstellar traveler.

This conclusion was made by astronomers Avi Loeb and AmirSiraj, who carefully studied the data from the NEO NASA Research Center on meteorite impacts for the first half of 2014. They found out that this space object flew to Earth at a speed of 60 kilometers per second and was very small - the width did not exceed one meter. When the researchers calculated the trajectory of its flight, it became clear that the object was not orbital attached to the Sun, that is, it was originally not in our Solar System.

Based on all this, the researchers didThe conclusion is that interstellar objects can be quite frequent guests of the solar system, but astronomers simply do not notice them. And in vain - they can carry a lot of interesting information, or even deliver life from distant planets.

The reaction of the scientific community

Hearing the opinion of researchers, astronomicalcommunity divided into two camps. One part of the experts believes that scientists have made conclusions too early - astronomer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Eric Mamayek is skeptical about them, because they were made on measurements of only one event. However, among scientists there are those who support the opinion of their Harvard colleagues.

I think it would be reasonable to conclude that this high-speed object really has an interstellar origin. Interstellar objects can be quite common.

Kat Wolf, astrophysicist from the University of Arizona

Who knows, maybe one of the interstellar travelers will be a ship from extraterrestrial civilizations? After all, astronomers have already suggested that the Oumuamua asteroid was sent by aliens.

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