The remains of an interstellar meteor to be analysed by Harvard astrophysicist

You need not have watched the film Interstellar to know that the term means “between the stars.” Now, as many of you space enthusiasts might know, meteors or shooting stars are formed out of comets. But what if we told you there are a few of them that are interstellar in nature? Fascinating, isn’t it? 

Well, that is exactly what was discovered in 2019 by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb (best known as the co-founder of Galileo Project). And now after initial rounds of investigation, he believes that the fragments from the interstellar meteor is currently under the oceanic surface, more specifically in the Pacific region around Papua New Guinea. As a result, he and his team is all set to go on an underwater expedition and have even raised 1.5 million dollars for the mission. Loeb also believes that this interstellar meteor is first of its kind and is artificial in origin. Why? Because it is tougher than all other meteors catalogued by all global space agencies, including NASA. Loeb further believes that the meteor was launched a billion years ago by some ancient civilisation from the outside of our solar system and could very well be alien technology.  

Okay, but if it is a prehistoric meteor, how come Loeb got to about it? Because, it came re-hurtling towards the Earth in 2014 and had exploded into tiny fragments, more than 100 kilometres off the coast of Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, the area Loeb now intends to traverse. However, what suggested that it came from somewhere outside the solar system was its trajectory. In fact, it was 5 years later, that Loeb had chanced upon it while going through some of NASA’s satellite images.  

Deemed as IM1, the meteor was classified as an interstellar one by NASA in 2022 and was even regarded as more powerful than the last 272 meteors traced by the space agency’s Centre for Near Earth Object Studies or CNEOS.  

To know more about this unique meteor, Loeb has thus decided to conduct a two-week long combing of the ocean floor this summer using a ship having magnetic sled. He believes that the fragments are lying at a depth of 1.7 kilometres. As for now, he believes that IM1 has unusual strength because it was ejected out of an exploding star or when two neutron stars were colliding against each other. Interestingly, Loeb thinks that IM1 is a close relative of another interstellar meteor called IM2 that was traced near Portugal in 2017.  

The Harvard-based astrophysicist also aims to analyse the composition of the meteor as he thinks it would be very different from the meteors that emerge out of the solar system. Loeb has further stated that if he and his team indeed find a relic of the meteor, they will donate it to the Museum of Modern Art in New York for public display.