The Solar System is not a perfectly shut scheme . Sometimes asteroid , comets , and the casual space vehicle get flung out . Meanwhile , object from other star scheme can pay us a visit too , although all we presently physically possess from outside our asterisk organisation aredust metric grain . A controversial team of astronomers have plans to fix that , hunting down anobject that ante up us a visitin 2014 , although their idea sounds a fiddling like a baby ’s first attempt at spell sci - fi .

In the last five yearstwo objectstravelingtoo fastto make out from inside the Solar System have been find . necessarily global scientists want to meditate them , a desire that grew significantly with signs each , in dissimilar wayshavecompositionsunlike anything local . Theoretically we could found a spacecraft in orbit and waitress for the next such visitor , but the huge speed that identify these objects also make them punishing to catch .

However , in 2014 one such intruder apparently came to us , landing in the Pacific Ocean , and remnants are thought to persist on the ocean floor . In a preprint paper onArXiv.org , Harvard Professor Avi Loeb and pupil Amir Sirajpropose a plan to collect some piece as part of theirGalileo Project .

Their idea is to turn down a giant and very hefty magnet on a prospicient short letter winch to sweep the ocean flooring where they think pieces lie in . as luck would have it for them , the area 1.3 degree south , 147.6 degrees eastward is continental shelf , rather than bass sea . Nevertheless , it ’s potential to imagine a few obstacles to the programme .

For a kickoff , Siraj is confident the target they are seek , CNEOS 2014 - 01 - 08 is so fat in Fe , free-base on its seeming material strength , that the magnet ’s attractor will subdue the stickiness of the ocean bottom . However , there ’s a lot of supposition in that . what is more , we do n’t screw much about that part of the ocean flooring – there could be enough terrestrial smoothing iron there that the attracter grabs things it is n’t signify to . The task also relies on current not having moved the meteorite pieces outside the search zona .

Still , even if the probability of achiever is n’t keen , the takings could be Brobdingnagian .

The project is wait to be $ 1.7 million , andLive Sciencereports so far $ 500,000 has been committed .

In 2019 Loeb and Siraj investigated observations recorded in the Center for Near - Earth Object Studies ( CNEOS ) catalogue of asteroids that have approached , or actually hit the Earth . Seeking anything moving suspiciously fast , they noticed three candidates . The most bright wasan impacton January 6 , 2014 northward of Manus Island Papua New Guinea , then web site of Australia’snotoriously traumatizingdetention center for refugee .

The usable datum designate CNEOS 2014 - 01 - 08 was traveling 60 kilometers per second ( 135,000 Roman mile per hr ) relative to the Sun when it rack up . That ’s well clear of the 42 km / s expect to take an object out of the Solar System if the Earth had n’t have in the path . Since no close planetary glide slope speed it , CNEOS 2014 - 01 - 08 must have acquire that speed elsewhere , make it an interstellar aim .

At the fourth dimension , however , some of the data on CNEOS 2014 - 01 - 08 was sort out , so the error bar were large enough to leave behind some doubt . Public pastime aim the absent informationdeclassifiedand interstellar condition was confirmed .

The finding imply interstellar visitant are common , but this could still be our full chance to canvas one for a while .

CNEOS 2014 - 01 - 0 is thought to have been just 0.5 meters ( 1.5 feet ) astray on impact , and Siraj told Live Science " It struck the standard atmosphere with about 1 % the zip of theHiroshima bomb . " Nevertheless , it is call up many fragments survived , although they ’re probably microscopical .

Even if successful , the delegacy will only bring out one interstellar visitor ’s make - up , not all of them . Local meteorites have quite arange of typography , and we bed ' Oumuamua and 2I / Borisov were very different beasts . Still , it would be a start .

Loeb and Siraj have made contradictory gens for themselves in late years . They have proposeda stringofintriguingandplausiblehypotheses . On the other hand , Loeb in particular has vigorously promotedcontroversial claims – most splendidly that ' Oumuamua is analien spaceship – despite a over lack of grounds .