How to treat scientist’s claims about fragments of an alien spacecraft

Avi Loeb, a physicist from Harvard University (USA), discovered 50 tiny spherical iron fragments at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which, in his opinion, may be fragments of an alien interstellar spacecraft.

Loeb attributes his discovery to the appearance of a fireball in the atmosphere in January 2014. The meteor was spotted by the US Department of Defense detection equipment, which tracks all objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It was recorded as traveling faster than most meteors and eventually disintegrated over the South Pacific near Papua New Guinea.

Data about this object is stored at NASA’s Center for the Study of Near-Earth Objects (CNEOS). The official name of the meteor is CNEOS 20140108, it is also called IM1 (Interstellar Meteor 1, Interstellar Meteor 1).

From seeing a fireball to claiming it’s an alien spacecraft, it takes a very big leap. On what evidence does Loeb base his claim? And how likely is it to be true?

We already had at least one guest from interstellar space – a comet Oumuamua. The appearance of comet 1I/2017U1, officially named Oumuamua, was certainly an unusual event. The object was seen in 2017 as it was leaving the solar system. Its trajectory differs from the near-circular orbits of the planets and the elliptical orbits of comets.

Scientists have followed the path of the comet and found that it came to us from the most remote corners of the solar system. The scientists were both thrilled and intrigued at the same time: although the camera did not capture its shape, the way the light bounced off it as it rotated suggested that it had a rather strange shape: resembling a cigar when viewed from the side, or plate when viewed from above.

In his rather thoughtful article, written in 2018, Loeb suggested that Oumuamua may not be of natural, but of artificial origin – a product of the activities of an alien civilization. He proposed to continue the search for interstellar debris in the solar system.

In search of such debris, Loeb’s team turned to the CNEOS database looking for objects with unusual orbital characteristics. It was then that they discovered CNEOS 20140108 and, based on its high speed, assumed that it was an interstellar meteor, giving it the more convenient name IM1.

By simulating the trajectory of the fireball, Loeb identified a specific area in the South Pacific where he believed debris from IM1 would fall. In the course of dredging work in the area, carried out with the help of a powerful magnet, he, according to his own statementsdiscovered the material IM1.

But what is the likelihood that he even found a real interstellar debris, not to mention a spaceship?

Space balls?

The diameter of the found metal balls is about half a millimeter. It is possible that they are indeed of extraterrestrial origin: several previous expeditions have extracted balls from space from the seabed.

The first expedition to discover such specimens was the expedition of HMS Challenger in 1872-76. The material recovered from the bottom of the ocean contained many metal droplets, which at that time were quite accurately called “cosmic balls”. Droplets from space are spherical because they are the result of solidification of molten material that breaks off the surface of meteorites as they pass through the atmosphere.

Subsequent expeditions throughout the 20th century also found cosmic marbles at the bottom of the ocean, but it became more difficult to identify them. This is explained by the fact that in the 150 years that have passed since the Challenger expedition, the amount of pollution on Earth has increased.

In 1872, the Industrial Revolution was in its infancy in Europe and virtually non-existent in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, pollution such as “fly ash” (waste from coal combustion) and car exhaust particles were minimal. Many of these contaminants are spherical and have a metallic composition.

Today, waste products from industrial processes and vehicles are ubiquitous. Therefore, without actually analyzing the composition of the spherules and comparing them with the analysis of the composition of meteorites (and ordinary terrestrial waste), it is impossible to identify any of them as extraterrestrial.

Interstellar?

But Loeb believes that this material came not just from outer space, but from interstellar space, claimingthat “this may be the first time humans have gotten their hands on interstellar material.”

It’s just not true. We have an abundance of interstellar material on Earth. Part of it is almost certainly at the bottom of the ocean, but not in the form in which Loeb found it.

The interstellar material I’m talking about comes in several varieties. Astronomers are well aware that the interstellar medium – the space between stars – is not empty, but filled with various molecules, many of which are organic (consist of carbon chains or rings). Some of these molecules ended up in that region of space where the solar system began to form.

The stars themselves, evolving or exploding as supernovae, also contribute to the interstellar medium. Some of this material takes the form of tiny diamonds or sapphires, rare memories of stars that lived and died before the sun was even born. These grains were incorporated into the dust cloud that condensed to form the solar system and eventually fell to Earth as meteorites.

Alien spaceship?

Loeb’s evidence for an extraterrestrial source of material – let alone an interstellar origin – is rather shaky. He found metal balls. In order for me (and many others) to agree that these balls are extraterrestrial, I need solid analytical evidence. What is their composition? What is their age? Can we rule out terrestrial pollutants? Can we rule out debris of extraterrestrial material within the solar system?

The answer to the first question – about the composition – was received: the analysis of the ball showed that they consist mainly of iron with a small amount of trace metals.

We know that meteors from our solar system contain iron and nickel, which mimics the relative abundance of these metals in the sun. However, the balls appear to contain “negligible” amounts of nickel, indicating that they are almost certainly not solar system meteors. However, this does not prove their interstellar origin, but only increases the likelihood that they belong to terrestrial pollutants.

The most convincing evidence would be to determine the age of the balls, and if it exceeded the age of the Sun, this would allow them to be identified as interstellar.

And this would be surprising, but would not necessarily indicate that they are of artificial rather than natural origin. I’m not sure what evidence would be strong enough for that – maybe an autograph from the alien engineer who built the spacecraft?