A meteorite believed to be from beyond the solar system crashed into the ocean in 2014 off Papua New Guinea. Scientists have now launched a deep-ocean expedition to search for the space rock, as it is only the third known object of its kind, Science Times reported. The two pthers – Oumuamua and Borisov – landed on Earth in 2017 and 2018, the agency further said. Oumuamua is about 100 meters long, while Borisov is between 0.4 and 1 kilometer long. These objects are the oldest known interstellar objects. However, a meteorite that fell into the southwestern Pacific Ocean was later found to predate these two. According to weather.com, Harvard professor Avi Loeb and graduate student Amir Siraj were the first to recognize the possible interstellar origin of the meteor, which they named CNEOS 2014-01-08. They arrived at this result by analyzing the trajectory of the half-meter-wide object. Its impressively high heliocentric velocity suggests that it is not pulled by our Sun’s gravity. However, due to a lack of information, the scientific community has refused to officially designate CNEOS 2014-01-08 as an interstellar object. This was because the data used to calculate the impact of the meteorite on Earth was gathered by a US Department of Defense satellite. The exact error values ​​of the measurement also became a closely guarded secret because the US military refused to reveal their satellite’s capabilities, weather.com further reported. But a thread was shared on Twitter on April 7 this year by the United States Space Administration, in which chief scientist Joel Mozer reviewed the classified data and confirmed the meteorite’s interstellar orbit. According to scientists, the meteorite is only slightly larger than a microwave oven. Most of it likely burned up when it entered Earth’s atmosphere, and the surviving fragments plummeted into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, sciencetimes.com reported.

title: “Scientists Launch Undersea Mission To Search For Interstellar Meteorite That Hit Earth In 2014 Report " ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-03” author: “Virginia Fecteau”

A meteorite believed to be from beyond the solar system crashed into the ocean in 2014 off Papua New Guinea. Scientists have now launched a deep-ocean expedition to search for the space rock, as it is only the third known object of its kind, Science Times reported. The two pthers – Oumuamua and Borisov – landed on Earth in 2017 and 2018, the agency further said. Oumuamua is about 100 meters long, while Borisov is between 0.4 and 1 kilometer long. These objects are the oldest known interstellar objects. However, a meteorite that fell into the southwestern Pacific Ocean was later found to predate these two. According to weather.com, Harvard professor Avi Loeb and graduate student Amir Siraj were the first to recognize the possible interstellar origin of the meteor, which they named CNEOS 2014-01-08. They arrived at this result by analyzing the trajectory of the half-meter-wide object. Its impressively high heliocentric velocity suggests that it is not pulled by our Sun’s gravity. However, due to a lack of information, the scientific community has refused to officially designate CNEOS 2014-01-08 as an interstellar object. This was because the data used to calculate the impact of the meteorite on Earth was gathered by a US Department of Defense satellite. The exact error values ​​of the measurement also became a closely guarded secret because the US military refused to reveal their satellite’s capabilities, weather.com further reported. But a thread was shared on Twitter on April 7 this year by the United States Space Administration, in which chief scientist Joel Mozer reviewed the classified data and confirmed the meteorite’s interstellar orbit. According to scientists, the meteorite is only slightly larger than a microwave oven. Most of it likely burned up when it entered Earth’s atmosphere, and the surviving fragments plummeted into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, sciencetimes.com reported.