A Harvard professor says a meteor that burned up in the atmosphere was traveling too fast to have come from our solar system.
The first meteor of interstellar origin has been discovered by scientists in the U.S., after a Harvard professor earlier found that an object seen over Papua New Guinea in 2014 likely came from a region of space beyond our solar system.
“Instead of looking far out into space, and given the fact that there should be a higher abundance of interstellar objects smaller than ‘Oumuamua, we thought, Why not look locally and find these smaller interstellar objects as they collide with the Earth's atmosphere?” Siraj said. Such a high ejection speed could be achieved only if an object was coming from the innermost cores of planetary systems, Loeb explained. For sun-like stars, this would be an orbit within that of Mercury, while for dwarf stars it would be from within the habitable zone.
The discovery, Siraj noted, raises the possibility that there may be meteorites—meteors that survive passage through Earth’s atmosphere—that come from beyond our solar system. A meteorite like this, he said, would have isotope ratios that would be different from ones coming from within the solar system.
Loeb said the detection method could result in an alert system that could lead to observations of interstellar meteors. Because of the speeds these objects would be traveling, this could be fairly straightforward, he said.
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