a meteorite submerged far beneath the sea
It turns out that there might be a celestial object like this off the coast of Papua New Guinea that is submerged deep in the water. According to a story by Universe Today released on Wednesday, several experts are currently looking for the interstellar object that fell back in 2014.
It is the first of its sort that has been identified on Earth. It would be risky to launch an undersea expedition to search for it, but the scientific benefits would be so great that it would be worthwhile.
By the scientific community ignored
This is a problem since the scientific community won’t accept that CNEOS 2014-01-08 might be an interstellar object unless these specifics are provided. As a result, Siraj and Loeb’s study on the subject has not yet been published and has not gone through peer review.
For this reason, the researchers are now making an effort to locate the object themselves so they may examine it closely. What approach would they take here?
It would be particularly challenging to locate the meteorite’s leftover parts because the majority of it probably burned away as it entered the atmosphere. The particles, according to the researchers, would be magnetic, so a ship equipped with a powerful magnet might be able to gather them up.
What areas are they going to look in for these pieces? The ocean is after all quite big. Luckily, a search area of just 10 km x 10 km may be successfully conducted using satellite tracking information along with information on wind and ocean currents.
An ocean technology consulting firm is already in conversation with Siraj and Loeb to assess the viability of their plans.
According to Loeb, a search like that may give researchers “the opportunity to actually put the artifact in our hands and figure out if it’s natural, whether it’s a rock, or whether, you know, a small fraction of those [interstellar objects] might be manmade.”