Astronomer Avi Loeb wants to look for signs of extraterrestrial life. An expedition is to clarify what a certain meteorite is all about.
A Harvard University scientist wants to investigate whether a meteorite from 2014 could have been an extraterrestrial probe. According to Avi Loeb, he has already raised $1.5 million (€1.3 million) for his mission. He has previously expressed his belief that extraterrestrials are in contact with Earth.
The meteorite exploded over the Pacific Ocean in 2014, debris is believed to be near Papua New Guinea. The American Space Command later confirmed that IM1 came from interstellar space and broke up upon entering Earth’s atmosphere. However, the individual parts have not yet been found. The Harvard expert does not rule out a meteorite chunk. However, the material is said to be unusually hard, as was the case with a meteor called IM2 observed in 2017.
Avi Loeb is a professor and institute director at Harvard University in Cambridge and the author of the book “Extraterrestrial”.
“It’s also possible that IM1 and IM2 are hard because they are artificial in origin and resemble our own interstellar probes, but were launched a billion years ago by a distant technological civilization,” he writes. Loeb and his team have been working intensively on the trajectory over the past few years and are sure they will find tracks on the sea floor. The scientist told the American “Daily Beast” that he wanted to search the ground for two weeks with magnets that collect metal parts.
“We have a boat. We have a dream team”
In an article on Medium, Loeb had already reported on the plans for his expedition in January. “We have a boat. We have a dream team including some of the most experienced and qualified ocean expedition professionals. We have complete design and manufacturing plans for the necessary sleds, magnets, collection nets and mass spectrometers,” he wrote.
Even if they weren’t parts of an extraterrestrial probe, a salvage would still be interesting for the scientist. “It’s the first time anything has come from outside the solar system, and second, it’s harder than 99.7 percent of anything we’ve seen before.”
