The US Space Command announced a secret kept secret for 3 years: The object has terrible speed!

The US Space Command, after 3 years of review, announced the existence of an object with a speed of 58,333 meters per second!

3 years secret revealed

According to a new announcement from the US Space Command (USSC), a fireball that burned in the sky over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system that crashed into Earth. .

The object, which is a small meteorite measuring only 0.45 meters across, entered Earth's atmosphere on January 8, 2014, after traveling through space at more than 210,000 km/h (equivalent to 210,000 km/h). equivalent to 58,333 meters per second) - a tremendous speed, far exceeding the average velocity of asteroids orbiting the Solar System, according to a 2019 study of the object published in the arXiv database.

That 2019 study argued that the meteor's astonishing speed, along with its orbit, proved with 99% certainty that the object originated farther than our Solar System. "This 0.45 meter meteorite may have come "from the depths of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy," the authors wrote.

This object travels through space at a speed of more than 210,000 km / h (equivalent to 58,333 meters / s).

However, the 2019 study - although it is said to be quite solid - has never been published in a scientific journal, as some of the data needed to verify their calculations has been considered by the US government. is "information classified", Vice information.

Now, after 3 years, USSC scientists have officially confirmed the team's 2019 discovery to the public via a memorandum.

In a memo dated March 1, 2022 and shared on Twitter on April 6, 2022, Lieutenant General John E. Shaw, Deputy Commander of the USSC, wrote: The 2019 analysis of the fireball was " precise enough to confirm the interstellar orbit of the 0.45 meter meteorite".

The memo adds, this confirmation makes the 2014 meteorite the first interstellar object ever discovered in our Solar System.

According to the USSC memo, the discovery of this object precedes the discovery of 'Oumuamua - a notorious, cigar-shaped object that is also moving too fast for its Solar System origin. us - about 3 years. (Unlike the 2014 meteor, 'Oumuamua was detected very far away from Earth and is rapidly moving out of the Solar System, according to NASA).

Dr Amir Siraj, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard University in the US and Director of Interstellar Object Research at the Galileo Project (Harvard) and lead author of the 2019 paper, says told Vice that he still intends to publish the original research so that the modern scientific community can continue where he and his colleagues left off. Because when the meteorite burned up over the South Pacific, it is possible that its fragments fell into the South Pacific and from there nestled on the seafloor.

Although locating meteorites is a difficult task, Amir Siraj said he has consulted with experts about the possibility of organizing an expedition to recover them.

"The possibility of getting the first piece of distant material is exciting enough for us to study and understand it," Amir Siraj told Vice.

Mysterious meteorite 2014

Dr Amir Siraj and study co-author Avi Loeb were inspired to search for potential interstellar fireballs after the discovery of 'Oumuamua, an interstellar object appearing in the Solar System. sky in 2017.

Dr Avi Loeb, who famously speculated that 'Oumuamua could be part of alien technology, said that in 2019 Dr Siraj had dug deep into the data of the Center for Near Object Research. Earth (CNEOS) by NASA and discovered the 2014 ultrafast object in that dataset.

'Oumuamua, an interstellar object that appeared in the Solar System in 2017.

There are nearly 1,000 space-object impacts on Earth recorded in the database, but a fireball that exploded near Manus Island in Papua New Guinea on January 8, 2014 made a big splash. of Dr. Siraj due to its unusually fast speed.

According to 2019 research by Drs Amir Siraj and Dr Avi Loeb, this breakneck speed hints at "possibly a origin from the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy." ".

"It's really fast. And what's even more remarkable is that there were no interstellar objects until 2017 when 'Oumuamua was discovered. So no one has reason to think there could be celestial objects. The meteorites come from outside the Solar System. However, the reality is quite different: The 2014 meteorite became the first interstellar object ever discovered in our Solar System." - Dr. Amir Siraj speak.

Already in 2019, Drs Siraj and Loeb submitted their findings to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, but the study became problematic during the review process due to a lack of information that the US government withheld during the year. CNEOS database.

During the 3 years since Dr. Siraj and Loeb submitted to the scientific journal, the 2014 meteorite discovery has "passed the hands" of many individuals and organizations to check and review: From the National Laboratory Los Alamos team to NASA and other government agencies for inspection, as well as to the hands of Dr. Joel Mozer, Chief Scientist for Space Operations Command of the US Space Force, before it was released to the public. via memo.

Although this is an extremely small object, it indicates that the Solar System may be filled with matter from other star systems, and indeed even other galaxies, which can be found in the solar system. future. Such efforts could offer glimpses of worlds beyond the Sun right here - on Earth.