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Oumuamua, the first interstellar object detected, has been in the headlines since its discovery in 2017. Since then, researchers have speculated on what this might be, with some suggesting that it could 39, a light sail from another civilization, other comet or asteroid.
But now, a new study suggests that Oumuamua is not alone – another interstellar object has disintegrated in the Earth 's atmosphere five years ago.
The study, which was submitted to The letters of the astrophysical journal and can be read at arXiv.org, suggests that NASA has already detected an interstellar object, a 3-foot meteor, detected on January 8, 2014 in Papua New Guinea. According to the authors of the study, Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb, the speed of the object, which has been cataloged with the Center for Studies of Near-Earth Objects, indicates that it could come from a system located outside the solar system.
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"Based on [Center for Near-Earth Object Studies’] In the catalog of racing events, we identify the detected meteor (0.45 m) … as coming from an unbound hyperbolic orbit (…) outside the solar system, "the researchers wrote.
They continued: "Its high speed in LSR implies a possible origin of the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy."
Loeb is no stranger to interstellar objects, having previously drafted a study that there could be a large number of objects similar to Oumuamua floating around the galaxy of the Milky Way, but humanity have not found them yet.
Chair of Astronomy at Harvard University, Loeb is also the researcher who suggested that Oumuamua is an extraterrestrial probe.
Speaking with Space.com, Loeb said that the 2014 meteor's speed could indicate that he has received a proverbial gravitational push from outside the solar system.
"You can imagine that if these meteors were ejected from the habitable area of a star, they could help transfer life from one planetary system to another," Loeb told the newspaper.
In addition to the 2014 meteor flying over Papua New Guinea, Loeb and Siraj discovered two other meteors in the CNEOS catalog that were traveling at similar speeds, ultimately analyzing 30 years of data. One of the meteors was probably gravitationally bound to the Sun (because of its orbit), while the other is undetermined, reported LiveScience.
Alongside John Forbes, Loeb has already written that it is possible that interstellar objects "collide with the Sun once every 30 years, while about two spend in the orbit of Mercury each year. ".
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At its closest approach, Oumuamua was about 0.26 astronomical unit (AU) from the Sun, or about 24.2 million miles. A UA represents about 93 million miles.
Another astronomer, Greg Laughlin of Yale University, also believes that there may actually be trillions of objects similar to Ouamuamua in the Milky Way, according to Space.com.
Oumuamua, the Hawaiian name of "pathfinder" or "scout", was discovered in October 2017 by the PanSTARRS1 telescope after spotting a new light point coming from a strange direction at an unusually fast speed.
For its part, NASA has stated that it was a "metallic or rocky object" of a length of about 400 meters (1,312 feet) and overhead. 39, a width of 40 meters (131 feet). However, the government space agency said in November not having seen the object in the background, adding a little credibility to Forbes and Loeb's theory.
Oumuamua is expected to enter the orbit of Neptune in 2022 and, in about 20,000 years, will definitively leave the solar system.
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