Posted on 04/11/2022 12:22:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo(opens in new tab) released by the U.S. Space Command (USSC).
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) — a speed that far exceeds the average velocity of meteors that orbit within the solar system, according to a 2019 study of the object published in the preprint database arXiv.
2019 study argued that the wee meteor's speed, along with the trajectory of its orbit, proved with 99% certainty that the object had originated far beyond our solar system — possibly "from the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy...
USSC scientists have officially confirmed the team's findings. In a memo dated March 1 and shared on Twitter on April 6, Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw, deputy commander of the USSC, wrote that the 2019 analysis of the fireball was "sufficiently accurate to confirm an interstellar trajectory."
This confirmation retroactively makes the 2014 meteor the first interstellar object ever detected in our solar system, the memo added. The object's detection predates the discovery of 'Oumuamua — a now-infamous, cigar-shaped object that is also moving far too fast to have originated in our solar system — by three years, according to the USSC memo. (Unlike the 2014 meteor, 'Oumuamua was detected far from Earth and is already speeding out of the solar system, according to NASA(opens in new tab).)
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Why does this information have to be classified in the first place? It was a friggin’ rock.
This reminds me of a Star Trek episode where one humanoid culture would take out other planets by way of steering thousands of asteroids at them so they wouldn’t even know they were under attack. I can’t remember which series it was, maybe Voyager or Next Generation.
So maybe they didn’t like Chuck Berry as much as we thought they would?
Did anybody see this rock, or take a picture of it, before it blew up? If not, how do we know it was only 1.5 feet across?
Three's the charm.
“Why does this information have to be classified in the first place? It was a friggin’ rock.”
It gives them power.
Bugs ranging shots,
It probably took some time to decide that it wasn’t a high-speed weather balloon.
It wasn’t the rock that was classified, it was the methods of detection and confirmation.
Probably not somebody, but something.
The late Louis Frank was hired by the DoD to study the data from a system of satellites that were intended to detect Soviet and Chinese ICBMs. He verified what the DoD suspected -- that the high-altitude flashes were the explosions of chunks of space debris, usually small comets.
What steve86 said.
It wasn’t a rock, it was a Rock Lobster!
It seeded micro bots that borrowed into the Earth and re now rapidly multiplying as the consume the Earth.
Is it even possible? Yes, it is.
Ow mau mau?
Is that racist?
5.56mm
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