The French newspaper "Le Parisien" published a report on a meteorite that fell on Earth's surface on January 8, 2014, near the northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea, and said that it was the first body to come from outside the solar system and crash on Earth.

The newspaper pointed out that this object was called "CNEOS 2014-01-08" and refers to the date of its fall, accompanied by the acronym of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

The US Space Command (the branch of the US military responsible for space operations) provided details of the circumstances of this discovery, which is the fruit of the work of researchers at Harvard University, Amir Siraj and his colleague Abraham Avi Loeb, who in 2017 were studying the asteroid "Oumuamua" classified as the first observed object outside the solar system. .

The shape of this orb was sometimes associated with the shape of a cigar or a pancake depending on the angle of observation, and after determining its sudden path, researchers at Harvard University put forward a controversial hypothesis that this body could only be an unidentified flying object.

It was CNEOS 2014-01-08's speed of 60 kilometers per second that, among other things, made Amir Siraj suspect an interstellar object, and its orbit was the decisive factor that led to this conclusion.

And because it wasn't orbiting the Sun, "CNEOS 2014-01-08" is coming from outside our solar system.

"Oumuamua" is the first object observed from outside the solar system (the island)

"I thought the true nature of this meteor would never be known."

"Maybe it came from another star before heading towards our star and hitting the Earth," Amir Siraj says.

The newspaper pointed out that the information that allows to verify the validity of Siraj and Loeb's theory was provided by the US Space Command.

The confirmation came in recent days while the researchers' discovery dates back to 2019.

Siraj acknowledges that he feared that the discovery would be lost due to the administrative obstacles of the US government. "I thought the true nature of this meteorite would never be known, and it was a wonderful moment to receive an email from the Department of Defense."

He is now trying to recover parts of "CNEOS 2014-01-08" but knows that the task is particularly difficult to carry out, although the study of these pieces will be a "culmination" in the field of interstellar objects: a meteor, an exploding meteorite, a meteorite, a meteorite, asteroid, comet;

How can you distinguish between them?

Main objects: asteroids or comets

To begin with, we have extraterrestrial bodies wandering between the planets of our solar system, some coming from elsewhere: asteroids, which are inactive bodies made of rocks, minerals, and ice, and comets, which are energetic bodies consisting of an icy core surrounded by a soft atmosphere of gas and dust.

When their orbit around the sun approaches the Earth, they are called near-Earth objects.

Asteroids are inactive bodies made of rocks, minerals, and ice (Island)

The state of the bodies: a meteorite, a meteor, or a meteorite

And if the body is wandering in interplanetary space, it is a meteor (comets, asteroids or pieces of them), and when it enters the Earth’s gravitational field, it rushes through our atmosphere in a way that leads to its complete or partial combustion, then moves from the state of the meteor to the state of the meteor, and if it does not completely disintegrate In the atmosphere, the pieces that fall to the surface of the earth are called meteorites.

The phenomenon that was observed... an explosive meteor or a meteor?

When a meteor is visible from Earth, the observed phenomenon may be more or less intense.

The largest objects that generate a luminous disk that can be seen during the day are called an exploding meteor, while the smaller parts that evaporate immediately, generating a trail of dust that can only be seen at night are called meteors.