Space, the final frontier

2291 readers

1 users here now

c/space Rules

Submissions must be related to Space
No sensationalist/ misleading/ unscientific content
No spam
No low-effort or meme images

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Metallic spheres found on Pacific floor are interstellar in origin, Harvard professor finds (www.usatoday.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Any known natural forming alloy would have completely vaporized into nothing

So...

You think no meteor has ever landed on Earth?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meteor-mcallen-texas-identified-meteorite-nasa-fragment-found/

That one was this year, they're relatively common.

More than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles are estimated to enter Earth from space daily. About every 2,000 years a meteor, the size of a football field hits Earth, causing significant damage.

Again, these "spheres" are the size of grains of sand, and hot metal falling into water causes them to be shaped as spheres, it's how they made musketballs.

Everything about this is completely normal if you have a 6th grade education in science

[–] justgohomealready -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Listen - the meteors that fall on earth every day are usually in an orbit similar to that of the earth, at more or less the same velocity. Can you picture that? There's dust flying around with the earth, at more or less the same speed, and that dust sometimes falls into our atmosphere and lands on someone's garden. That the normal situation.

This specific object came at the earth two times faster than any star around the solar system is moving. It crashed at the earth moving faster than everything else around us - and pieces of it survived the impact with the atmosphere!

That's why those spherules are special - regular meteors are made from iron and, if they entered the atmosphere at that speed, they would have competely vaporized. This one impacted the ocean, pieces of it were found, and it turns out it is made of some alloy we'd never seen before (and that's why pieces of it survived, because it's not iron like regular meteors).

Do you understand now the significance? I would recommend you read the article before replying again.