Physics Seminar: "The Search for Interstellar Objects of Technological Origin"

Guest Speaker: Professor Avi Loeb

Over the past decade, the first four interstellar objects were discovered. They include the interstellar meteor, IM1, detected on January 8, 2014, `Oumuamua detected on October 19, 2017, and Borisov detected on August 29, 2019. Among these, the first two appeared anomalous relative to known solar-system rocks whereas the fourth appeared to be a familiar comet. IM1 exhibited the highest material strength among all meteorites in the CNEOS catalog of NASA, `Oumuamua exhibited a flat shape and non-gravitational acceleration with no detectable cometary evaporation. In June 2023 we recovered 850 spherules from the Pacific Ocean site IM1. A tenth of these submillimeter meteoritic spherules displayed a unique chemical composition, different from familiar solar system materials. Currently, new Galileo Project Observatories are monitoring millions of objects near Earth in the infrared, optical, radio and audio and analyzing their nature with machine-learning software. Are any of them Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena? Forthcoming data from the Rubin Observatory in Chile will offer additional clues on interstellar objects. Is space trash from extraterrestrial technological civilizations lurking among the natural interstellar rocks?