Meteorite Strike Was Really Only a TruckPete Saloutos – Getty Photos”Hearst Magazines and Yahoo might earn fee or income on some objects by these hyperlinks.”On January 8, 2014, the meteorite CNEOS 20140108 struck close to the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea.Confirmed to be the primary identified interstellar meteorite to strike Earth, the rock turned the middle of a controversial principle that it was truly alien tech.A brand new research by John Hopkins College determines {that a} key piece of proof for finding the meteorite was truly only a truck driving by a seismometer.The case for aliens in our galaxy is a powerful one. Among the many 100 billions of stars that make up our Milky Approach, it’s statistically unlikely that Homo sapiens are the one ones who’ve discovered the entire civilization factor.As a result of studying that clever life exists on different planets could be probably the most profound discovery in human historical past, astronomers, astrobiologists, organizations, area businesses, and even governments have rightly invested some severe money and time into answering the existential query of whether or not or not we’re alone on the market. However typically, the search for that world-changing information can get a bit overzealous.Exhibit A: a meteorite identified by the designation CNEOS 20140108. This chunk of rock crashed into Earth on January 8, 2014 close to the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea simply north of Manus Island. It’s been on the heart of a declare that the rock truly contained materials “manufactured by a technological civilization” (a.ok.a. aliens). However scientists from John Hopkins College now declare that one of many key items of proof—floor vibrations recorded by a seismometer on Manus Island—isn’t linked to the meteorite in any respect. As an alternative, the sound is of one thing significantly terrestrial: a passing truck.“The sign modified instructions over time, precisely matching a street that runs previous the seismometer,’ Johns Hopkins planetary seismologist Benjamin Fernando mentioned in a press assertion. Fernando’s crew will current its findings on the Lunar and Planetary Science Convention in Houston on March 12. “It’s actually tough to take a sign and make sure it isn’t from one thing. However what we are able to do is present that there are many alerts like this, and present they’ve all of the traits we’d anticipate from a truck and not one of the traits we’d anticipate from a meteor.”CNEOS 20140108 is a very attention-grabbing rock. In 2022, the U.S. Division of Protection confirmed its interstellar origins, making it the primary interstellar meteorite identified to have struck Earth (although it’s seemingly that one strikes the planet each 10 years—we simply don’t understand it). Previous to the DoD’s interstellar affirmation, the rock had already caught the attention of Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, identified for his controversial theories surrounding extraterrestrial proof, who recognized the fireball as an outlier and named the rock “Interstellar Meteor 01.”After the DoD’s report, Loeb introduced his intentions to scoop up samples of the rock in a submit on Medium in 2022, and adopted by with the concept the next yr. In the summertime of 2023, Loeb triumphantly introduced that they’d discovered “steel spherules” that confirmed his extraterrestrial suspicions. Many astrophysicists swiftly denounced the claims, with one telling The New York Instances that “individuals are sick of listening to about Avi Loeb’s wild claims…it’s polluting good science.” Months later, a separate research dismissed these spherules as “anthropogenic coal ash.”Now, scientists from John Hopkins are successfully placing the proverbial nail on this extraterrestrial coffin. As a result of the seek for this meteorite was primarily based on misguided sound wave information, Loeb and his crew searched within the improper location for the meteorite within the first place.“The fireball location was truly very distant from the place the oceanographic expedition went to retrieve these meteor fragments,” he mentioned. “Not solely did they use the improper sign, they had been trying within the improper place.”Fernando as an alternative pulled information from stations in Australia and the archipelago nation of Palau, which had been initially used for nuclear testing, to establish a extra seemingly location of CNEOS 20140108.Whereas this extraterrestrial path has gone chilly, the reality may nonetheless be on the market.You Would possibly Additionally Like