The well-known “alien hunter of Harvard,” Avi Loeb, just completed a historic mission that cost $1.5 million and lasted two weeks. In the course of the project, Loeb descended to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where he asserts to have found the remains of the first acknowledged extraterrestrial object to have touched down on Earth.
Inquiry and speculative thinking regarding the mystery meteor known as IM1’s origins were sparked in 2014 when it crashed off the coast of Papua, New Guinea. Astrophysicist Avi Loeb, 61, raised the fascinating hypothesis that it might be an extraterrestrial technology. His earlier claim that the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua might be an alien-built craft that passed Earth had already drawn a lot of interest.
Loeb led a team of deep-sea explorers who unearthed 50 spherules—tiny molten droplets, about half a millimeter in diameter. These microscopic objects are typically shed by meteorites as they enter and burn through Earth’s atmosphere.
Approximately 35 milligrammes of the mysterious substance were gathered by Loeb’s team using a sizable magnetic sledge that was carried across the ocean’s surface. The astrophysicist predicts that these spherules are made of a steel-titanium alloy, which is significantly more durable than the iron that is often present in typical meteors. The intriguing notion that the spherules may be related to a highly developed extraterrestrial civilisation or have an interplanetary origin is thus raised. To determine their true nature, more research and testing are needed.
Loeb provided an update on his ongoing Medium blog, stating, “As molten droplets from a fireball, they carry information about the elemental and isotopic composition of the first recognised interstellar meteor.” He referred to the spherules as potential keys to unlocking the mystery surrounding the object’s origins.
It’s also important to examine how the spherules are distributed. Rather than in control areas far from IM1, they were mostly discovered along its expected course. The elemental and isotopic makeup of the discovered material will be examined in the next weeks by Loeb’s team, and the results will be reported in a manuscript that is sent to a peer-reviewed publication.