A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo released by the US Space Command (USSC).
Now, USSC scientists have officially confirmed the team's findings. In a memo dated March 1 and shared on Twitter on April 6, Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw, deputy commander of the USSC, wrote that the 2019 analysis of the fireball was"sufficiently accurate to confirm an interstellar trajectory."
This confirmation retroactively makes the 2014 meteor the first interstellar object ever detected in our solar system, the memo added.– a now-infamous, cigar-shaped object that is also moving far too fast to have originated in our solar system – by three years, according to the USSC memo. Amir Siraj, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard University and the lead author of the 2019 paper, told Vice that he still intends to get the original study published, so that the scientific community can pick up where he and his colleagues left off. Because the meteorite ignited over the South Pacific Ocean, it's possible that shards of the object landed in the water and have since nestled on the seafloor, he added.
While locating these scraps of interstellar debris might be a nigh-impossible task, Siraj said he is already consulting with experts about the possibility of mounting an expedition to recover them. "The possibility of getting the first piece of interstellar material is exciting enough to check this very thoroughly and talk to all the world experts on ocean expeditions to recover meteorites," Siraj told Vice.
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