Meteor remnants found in Pacific not part of solar system, could be 'alien technology': Harvard scientist

A strange meteor that fell intothe Pacific Ocean nine years ago came from outside of our solar system, a team of Harvard scientists claimed on Tuesday (Aug 29).

Professor and theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard University, Avi Leob said that based on an early analysis of the metallic spheres that fell off the coast of Papua New Guinea in June 2014, it was found that it is interstellar in origin.

Loeb said that the 700 tiny remnants of the meteor did not match any of the existing alloys in our solar system. He, however, added that his team is now finding whether the spheres are artificial or natural in origin

"This is a historic discovery because it represents the first time that humans put their hand on materials from a large object that arrived on Earth from outside the solar system," Loeb wrote Tuesday in the journal Medium.

He also did not rule out the possibility that the fragments could be part of an alien aircraft.

"The success of the expedition illustrates the value of taking risks in science despite all odds as an opportunity for discovering new knowledge," Loeb said.

In June, the team went through the seafloor for two weeks in the hopes of recovering evidence to support his theory.

Meteor fell on Pacific Ocean in 2014

Their expedition was financed by entrepreneur Charles Hoskinson who spent $1.5 million in order to retrieve any remnants they could find of the meteorite named IM1 that had crashed into Earth's atmosphere in 2014.

Professor Loeb and Harvard researcher Amir Siraj were the first ones to discover the meteorite and since then, have been working closely with the US military to pinpoint the impact zone near Papua New Guinea.

It is said that the IM1 was able to withstand four times the pressure that would typically destroy an ordinary iron-metal meteor. The meteor had an estimated mass of 460 kg and was between 80 cm and 1 m (2.6-3.3 feet) in diameter.

The team had sent 50 spherical iron fragments to a lab in Berkley, which later found that spheres were 'anomalous' and more durable than any observed naturally-produced meteorite.

Iron is the main component of any hardest known natural meteorites, so these Harvard scientists believed that there must be something very unusual about how the object was made.

Components of meteor 'extra-terrestrial'

Professor Loeb said, “More than 95% of all meteorites contain iron-nickel metal. As a consequence, meteorites have concentrations of nickel far greater than those of almost any terrestrial rock.”

However, unlike these typical iron-nickel meteorites, fragments of IM1 contained only “negligible” amounts of nickel, along with other “trace elements,” according to a preliminary statement given to DailyMail.com.

Trace elements means any chemical compound or atomic element present only in extremely small amounts, less than 100 parts per million.

“The fundamental question is whether the meteorite was of natural or technological origin. We hope to answer this question with further analysis of its isotopic composition and radioactive dating,” Leob stated.

(With inputs from agencies)

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