The sound waves, which were thought to be caused by an interstellar meteorite, were almost certainly vibrations from a truck. This makes it doubtful that the materials recovered from the ocean last year are related to a guest from outer space.
In January 2014, an object entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the western Pacific Ocean, which, according to some researchers, came from interstellar space. They related it to ground vibrations recorded by a seismic station on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. In 2023, searches were begun on the ocean floor, during which fragments were brought to the surface. As stated, they revealed traces of an “extraterrestrial” origin.
However, a new study conducted by scientists from Johns Hopkins University refutes such loud statements. In their opinion, the vibrations were almost certainly caused by a truck passing nearby. This is indicated by the fact that the signal changed direction over time, exactly coinciding with the road located next to the seismometer. And there were many such signals. All of them have the characteristics expected from a truck, and none of the characteristics that can be expected from a meteorite.
Moreover, according to scientists, the meteorite actually entered the atmosphere in a completely different place. Using data from stations in Australia and Palau designed to detect sound waves from nuclear tests, they determined that the crash site was more than 160 km from the area studied. Thus, the materials recovered from the ocean floor were tiny ordinary meteorites mixed with terrestrial pollution.
“Whatever was found on the sea floor is totally unrelated to this meteor, regardless of whether it was a natural space rock or a piece of alien spacecraft—even though we strongly suspect that it wasn’t aliens,” said Benjamin Fernando, head of the research group. The team will present their results at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference, which will be held on March 12 in Houston.
You can also read about how a mistake was found in Drake’s equation about extraterrestrial civilizations.
According to https://phys.org
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