The enigmatic spherules recovered from the ocean floor by Professor Avi Loeb are not of this star system. The mysterious objects are believed to have originated likely originated from a magma ocean on a distant exoplanet that likely has an iron core.
One of the most forward-thinking, open-minded researchers on Earth, is, without a reason of a doubt, Harvard Astronomer Avi Loeb. I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Loeb (via email) for kozmos.hr, Croatia’s first space magazine last year. Loeb is the kind of researcher who does not have an issue venturing out into the unknown, and when I say unknown, I refer to the subject of Aliens, alien life, and UFOs. In fact, it was Loeb who published a series of papers, many of which received backlash from the scientific community, about the potential artificial nature of the Interstellar object ‘Oumuamua. His book, “Extraterrestrial” which I highly recommend shows his point of view in regards to this potential alien craft.
But Loeb did not stop there. Ever since he learned of an interstellar object crashing into the Earth, the former chair of Astronomy at Harvard has been determined to look for it and figure out what it was. Based on initial data, this object, which crashed off the coast of Papua New Guinea was no ordinary object. Based on the math, Professor Loeb revealed there was a possibility the object was artificial in nature. But to find out whether this was the case, he had to first find it, or whatever was left of it from the ocean floor.
This was no easy task, but then again, Loeb isn’t your average stay-in-the-office professor. If I were to compare him to an action movie, I’d say he is the Indiana Jones of the extraterrestrial.
So off he went. Loeb gathered a team of researchers and ventured out into the unknown. Not literally but close enough. After having swept the ocean floor with a giant magnet hoping to “catch” whatever it was crashed and disintegrated upon impact, Loeb has some data he wants to share.
Previously I reported about Loeb’s discoveries as we followed his reports closely on his Medium Page. The researcher said in his latest media release that he has some big news. Was it ET? Well, sort of. Professor Loeb says that based on the initial analysis of the artifacts he and his team recovered from the ocean floor, he can confirm that the small metallic objects are indeed not of this solar system, and originated from interstellar space. This means that the object that crashed into the planet did not come from here, it was a visitor from a system far, far away.
Writing on his Medium page, the astronomer explained the importance of the discovery.
“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.
“The success of the expedition illustrates the value of taking risks in science despite all odds as an opportunity for discovering new knowledge,” he added.
Loeb, the Silver Stall, and fragments of something alien
In June, Loeb and his team boarded the Silver Star and sailed to the region where, based on calculations, the objects impacted and disintegrated. The voyage and exploration, financed with a mouth-watering 1.5 million dollars by Charles Hoskinson, did not disappoint, and the researchers did indeed discover miniature spherules of the object nicknamed IM1. Whatever it was, it impacted our planet in 2014.
Some 50 miles off the coast of Manus Island, Loeb and his team of curios scientists combed more than 150 kilometers of the ocean floor hoping to discover anything that was left from the object that impacted our atmosphere in 2014. The results? More than 700 tiny, submillimeter-sized objects. These were so tiny that you needed a microscope to see them. But this was exactly what Loeb was hoping to find.
However, finding them was not enough. The objects had to be studied with state-of-the-art equipment, and this is what Loeb and his colleagues did. The results revealed that the spherules recovered from the ocean floor, parts of the object that disintegrated upon impacting the atmosphere, contain “high abundances of unheard-of composition of heavy elements.
In fact, the object was composed of alloys that did not exist on Earth. The scan revealed the spherules were composed of Beryllium, Lanthanum, and Uranium, labeled as a “BeLaU. This type of alloy was not the result of mother nature, nor could it have been produced by fallout from nuclear explosions. The alloy found by Loeb does not exist in the magma oceans of our planet, nor th Moon. What is even more interesting is that these do not exist either on Mars or any other natural meteorites from our solar system.
Wht’smore, according to Loev, several other elements belonging to the interstellar object may have been “lost” as the object entered the atmosphere of the planet. So, based on what they know so far, the object likely originated in a magma ocean on a distant exoplanet that likely has an iron core. Investigations are by no means done. The materials recovered from the ocean floor are still being scrutinized by researchers to find out more about this strange, interstellar visitor.
Are we alone in the universe? Research like the one led by Loeb will certainly bring us one step closer to finding out.
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