In a statement released Thursday, April 7, the United States Space Command (USSC) confirmed that an interstellar meteor crashed into Earth in 2014. Until then, this information had been classified by this branch of the Pentagon, as the reports the HuffPost.
The fiery meteorite was observed at the time in the skies of Papua New Guinea.
She would have ended her race in the South Pacific Ocean.
Our colleagues specify that two other interstellar objects have since been identified by scientists, in 2017 and 2019. The first, named Oumuamua, was a fragment of a planet from another solar system.
The second was comet Borisov.
6/ “I had the pleasure of signing a memo with @ussfspoc's Chief Scientist, Dr. Mozer, to confirm that a previously-detected interstellar object was indeed an interstellar object, a confirmation that assisted the broader astronomical community.”
pic.twitter.com/PGlIOnCSrW
— US Space Command (@US_SpaceCom) April 7, 2022
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Search the seabed for fragments
According to researchers, the interstellar meteor that crashed into the Earth in 2014 exploded near Manus Island on January 8.
According to their information, its speed was then 130,000 miles per hour.
From now on, scientists would like to be able to search the seabed off Papua New Guinea in order to recover and analyze some fragments.
A project that, however, has little chance of succeeding.
It is indeed likely that the fireball that fell eight years ago disintegrated into small pieces.
According to the scientists, the discovery of a fragment is particularly exciting since it would offer a glimpse of the worlds that hide behind our Milky Way.
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