NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 12: Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, speaks on stage as Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking host a press conference to announce Breakthrough Starshot, a new space exploration initiative, at One World Observatory on April 12, 2016, in New York City.
Avi Loeb made headlines when he announced they found the first alien object on Earth. However, there were different opinions about it, with some claiming it could be an industrial waste. Still, the Harvard University physicist was adamant that it was a sign of extraterrestrial life.
Metallic Spherules Could Be Industrial Waste
During a $1.55 million expedition, Professor Avi Loeb found the enigmatic IM1 meteor on the coast of Papua New Guinea. According to a Harvard University physicist, the object originated in interstellar space and provided evidence of extraterrestrial life.
During the excursion, the crew discovered over 700 tiny metallic spheres; 57 were examined and determined to have compositions that did not match any known natural or artificial alloys.
However, a new theory from Patricio Gallardo, a research fellow at the University of Chicago, suggested that the spheres are an industrial waste and could be an offshoot of coal burning.
Gallardo consulted the Coalqual coal-chemical database, which is accessible to the general public. According to his study, the amounts of uranium, nickel, beryllium, lanthanum, and iron recorded in the metal spherules by Loeb and colleagues were "consistent with expectations from coal ash from a coal chemical composition database."
"The meteoritic origin is disfavored," Gallardo wrote.
Avi Loeb Responds To Coal-Ash Theory
In a post on Medium on Thursday, Loeb responded to Gallardo's analysis. He said the coal-ash theory was "based on unrefereed comments that superficially examined a few elements out of the dozens we analyzed."
Loeb noted that any such claim must replicate the measured abundances of all elements and, in particular, show the loss of volatile elements as derived in their research to be scientifically plausible. He also refuted the analysis in multiple ways.
Loeb quoted his team member Jim Lem, the head of the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Technology in Papua New Guinea, who said, "The region where the expedition was carried, should have no coal mineralization. In addition, coal is non-magnetic and cannot be picked up by the magnetic sled that was used," Also, the spherules had more iron than coal ash.
According to the results published in August, numerous compositions in the space rock don't correspond to any natural or manufactured alloys. The meteor is low in concentrations of metals that link to iron, such as rhenium, one of the rarest elements on Earth, but high in lanthanum, uranium, and beryllium.
While the elements were present on Earth, Loeb discovered that the patterns differed from those of alloys found on Earth, Mars, the moon, or any other meteorite in the solar system. The BeLaU pattern abundance found in the spherules of IM1 "may have potentially originated from a highly differentiated planetary magma ocean," according to the earlier study.
Avi Loeb Plans Another Expedition
Loeb previously announced that they planned another expedition to learn more about the nature of the IM1 meteor. They want to find large pieces within the next nine months.
However, the upcoming expedition could lead to another conflict between his team and the Papua New Guinean administration. The latter accused Loeb's crew of stealing the meteor from them during their initial voyage.
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