[HN Gopher] Interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, dec...
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Interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified govmt
data reveal
Author : DemiGuru
Score : 141 points
Date : 2022-04-11 18:46 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.livescience.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.livescience.com)
| spdustin wrote:
| Scientists also detected a meteor particle that appears to have
| been _extragalactic_ , with a 300km/s (671,081mph) entry
| velocity...in 2007!
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S1990341307040013
| dustingetz wrote:
| Is the probability of this event not equal to zero then?
| spuz wrote:
| The paper estimates objects of these size should hit Earth at
| least once per decade. The database goes back to 1988 so there
| might even be one or two others in there waiting to be
| detected.
| paxys wrote:
| Tiny meteorite (1.5 feet across) enters Earth's atmosphere and
| burns up. What is so remarkable about this? Doesn't this happen
| like every day?
| DocTomoe wrote:
| The interesting aspect is "interstellar" (=from outside the
| solar system) instead of just "interplanetary", which would
| imply an origin within the solar system.
|
| Stuff from outside is a lot rarer.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Nearly all meteorites are from the asteroid belt --
| interstellar origin is the interesting thing here.
| makerofspoons wrote:
| Meteors from our own solar system impact the atmosphere every
| day. One estimate for the frequency of an interstellar meteor
| hitting Earth is about once per decade:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2019/04/17/inters...
| criddell wrote:
| Why was this classified in the first place?
| eesmith wrote:
| From the linked-to Vice article at
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyp9ez/secret-government-inf...
|
| > Some of the sensors that detect fireballs are operated by the
| U.S. Department of Defense, which uses the same technologies to
| monitor the skies for nuclear detonations. As a result, Siraj
| and Loeb couldn't directly confirm the margin of error on the
| fireball's velocity.
| criddell wrote:
| I didn't follow all the links, so thanks for pointing out
| that one in particular. I think it's actually a better write
| up.
| sneak wrote:
| The solar system is huge, and earth is really really tiny. For
| this to have happened means that it is likely to happen again,
| which suggests that there is a large amount of crap out there
| blazing through interstellar space, any sufficiently large piece
| of which could be a civilization-ending projectile.
|
| We need better detection and defenses. And another planet. ASAP.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Wow that's actually incredible. The first confirmed interstellar
| object impacted earths atmosphere? Really shows how far tech must
| have come in detecting these events in the last 20 years or so.
|
| Also the coincidence of it impacting earth and not Jupiter or any
| other planetary body or just wizzing by is blowing my mind. Of
| course we have more sensors around earth so that makes sense but
| still. I would have thought we would've seen something similar to
| Oumououa prior to this.
| elihu wrote:
| If (presumed) single protons can be considered "objects"
| there's also the "oh-my-God particle" of 1991.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle
| sliken wrote:
| Geologist didn't have many sensors for locating earthquakes,
| but then several governments became very interested in tracking
| any nuclear testing and those sames sensors are quite good at
| tracking earthquakes. So much so that earthquakes can now be
| tracked in 3D anywhere on the planet, even enough to identify
| the shape and thickness of the various continental plates.
| FredPret wrote:
| Sometimes throwing money at something... works
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >The first confirmed interstellar object impacted earths
| atmosphere?
|
| That's mostly just because we don't notice 1.5ft wide rocks in
| space unless they do something interesting like hit our
| atmosphere
| [deleted]
| spuz wrote:
| Interestingly, the database contains two other objects detected
| with impact speeds of more than 40km/s including one from
| 2015-07-04 which an even greater speed than this interstellar
| asteroid. I wonder why these are not also considered to have
| interstellar origin? Is it because they were accelerated by the
| sun before colliding with the Earth? The original paper does not
| mention whether or not they considered the origins of any other
| objects from the database.
|
| https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/
| hirundo wrote:
| > The object, a small meteorite measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45
| meter) across,
|
| So a bit too small to hold baby Kal-El.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| And landed in the ocean, so he'd have drowned.
| fsloth wrote:
| Unless he's a baby octopus. And years after ... oh dear ...
| "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange
| aeons even death may die."
| graywh wrote:
| or some kind of arthropod and we end up in an Arthur C
| Clarke novel
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I think Superbaby would have survived.
|
| https://superfriends.fandom.com/wiki/Superbaby
| outworlder wrote:
| That could have been on purpose and they have gills :)
| fsloth wrote:
| Except unless he's really tiny and cuddly. Like a baby hamster.
| motoboi wrote:
| So `Oumuamua was actually the sail, the real probe arriving in
| 2014? #joke
| peter303 wrote:
| The Arachnids are bombing Earth. (Starship Troopers)
| betterburnout wrote:
| I sincerely do not understand the interest of the army to hide
| the presence of such a small meteorite.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| It's not about the meteor, it's about the capacity to detect
| and track it.
| spockz wrote:
| So the fact that they release this now means that they have
| an even better detection and tracking mechanism? Or do they
| just want others to believe that?
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| This info is classified by default usually. And the memo
| reads as if astrophysicists were asking the government to
| confirm or deny this specific bit of info for their
| research.
| d_burfoot wrote:
| The fact that an interstellar object happened by chance to
| intersect the earth implies that there are millions of such
| objects flying through the solar system. Most of them probably
| fly through and are never seen again. We really need to get
| better at space operations, so we can either catch one of these
| objects for further study, or at least figure out a way to build
| a probe that could follow it out of the system.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >The possibility of getting the first piece of interstellar
| material[...]
|
| It's very likely that there's interstellar material already on
| earth from before we were able to detect the impact though,
| right? Question for the astrophysicists, is there something in
| the composition of objects that can tell us if something is
| interstellar in origin?
| marktangotango wrote:
| > The object, a small meteorite measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45
| meter) across, slammed into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 8, 2014,
| after traveling through space at more than 130,000 mph (210,000
| km/h)
|
| Can anyone say what percentage of the speed of light that is?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| skissane wrote:
| About 0.02%
| dkural wrote:
| ~%0.02 the speed of light. So less one in five thousandth the
| speed of light.
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| 130,000 /
|
| Speed of light: 670,616,629mph
|
| = 0.00019385144% the speed of light
| [deleted]
| dkural wrote:
| The ratio is not a percent. For example, 1/100 = 0.01 = 1% -
| i.e. NOT 0.01% So you would get 0.019385144% speed of light
| in your calculation.
| pif wrote:
| You can.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Real answer:
|
| I absolutely love being alive right now. A Higgs boson! Confirmed
| objects from outside our solar system! A real life picture of a
| black hole! We're just at the start of being able to learn these
| things, and it's getting better by the year. I love it.
|
| Conspiracy answer:
|
| The alien probe launched 10,000 years ago just determined that
| either:
|
| 1) Our atmosphere is sufficiently thick to cause the object to
| disintegrate over seconds instead of instantaneously, meaning
| there's enough raw gaseous material to be interesting, or
|
| 2) We have an active defense system, meaning the local
| inhabitants are smart enough to be interesting.
|
| In 46 years, when the light reaches its origin around 26
| Draconis, observations will be recorded, reports will be filed,
| and plans will be made.
| shakezula wrote:
| > In 46 years, when the light reaches its origin around 26
| Draconis, observations will be recorded, reports will be filed,
| and plans will be made.
|
| This gives me Douglas Adams vibes, thinking about an alien
| species posting plans to invade Earth. "The plans were on
| display for months" [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-
| on...
| kingofpandora wrote:
| That quote is about planning a terrestrial road.
|
| _This quote_ is about planning an interstellar invasion:
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5942504-the-mighty-ships-
| to...
| drewzero1 wrote:
| It especially reminds me of the Grebulons from the
| final^H^H^H^H^Hfifth book in the series, whose ships computer
| was damaged in transit, corrupting the mission directive and
| the memories of the crew. All they could figure out was that
| they should monitor the earth from a safe distance, so they
| set up a base on the tenth planet Rupert and watched earth TV
| all day.
| kstrauser wrote:
| "Well, crud. The survey showed that the shortest route isn't
| completely clear."
|
| "Should we report this?"
|
| "You really want to do all that paperwork?"
|
| "Bulldozer it is."
| drewzero1 wrote:
| "Do you have any idea how much damage this bulldozer would
| suffer if I let it roll right over you?"
| EthanHeilman wrote:
| Sending probes is dangerous. You never know who is going to
| capture it and figure out where it was sent from. Conclusion:
| make deniable self-destructing probes.
|
| 1. Send probe to star system slow enough to be random
| interstellar rock on a collision course with planetary body,
|
| 2. it collects data as it approaches body,
|
| 3. then have it self-destruct in the atmo destroying all
| technology and information in the probe. Use the energy from
| the destruction to send a message back on a wide cone that can
| be intercepted.
| teraflop wrote:
| Sadly, the combination of "wide cone" and "detectable from
| light-years away" implies some fairly prohibitive energy
| requirements.
| [deleted]
| dleslie wrote:
| (2) is more fun, and so I will actively entertain it while
| accepting that (1) is more likely to be true.
| gleenn wrote:
| Could you imagine trying to aim something at a moving planet
| from light years away and while also shooting it at that speed
| and not having potential a huge number of things affect it's
| trajectory via gravity? I love the conspiracy theory, but
| unless it could course-correct during flight, the odds seem
| insanely low for it to be a alien test probe
| meetups323 wrote:
| If I was an alien engineer trying to aim something at a
| moving planet light years away while also shooting it at that
| speed and having a huge number of things affect it's
| trajectory via gravity, I'd make it course-correct during
| flight.
| ffhhj wrote:
| "The navigation stage was released about Jupiter, as
| planned. They will ask for centuries who threw that rock,
| bhahaharaH!"
| starwind wrote:
| You can go a step further. Use a computer vision algorithm
| to find planets, and then do some spectroscopy to identify
| planets with water in their atmosphere. Course correct to
| aim at one of those planets
| mrfusion wrote:
| Why are we assuming it couldnt course correct?
| gleenn wrote:
| They said it looked like a comet, not a rocket, it was very
| small in size.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This is the plot of the Expanse books. Ancient alien
| civilization loads a rock with nano-computers that take over
| self-replicating molecules on planets with life to build
| stuff, aim it at Earth two billion years ago, but it never
| makes it because Saturn captures it and it becomes the moon
| Phoebe instead.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Well, they're cleverer than us. They probably just plugged
| the numbers into the n-body equation they teach in their
| junior high schools.
|
| Also:
|
| - The ion thrusters were small enough to completely
| disintegrate on impact/reentry.
|
| - Oumuamua was the mother ship, clearly.
| willis936 wrote:
| Or used their quantum computers with trillions of qBits to
| be confident of the trajectory to the limit of their
| sensing ability.
| lokimedes wrote:
| It was no disintegration at all, merely a thermochemical
| nanomultiplication catalyst that relied on aerobreaking
| to generate 10^14 quantum entangled shards of spy drones.
| These are now permeating all multi-celled organisms,
| which they have adapted as co-processors. They rely on
| quantum-entanglement synchronized gravitational wave
| induction for home-world communication, but can fall back
| to planet-wide baseline interferometry due to the
| entangled nature of their origin.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Maybe they launched millions of those things
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