The Pentagon Confirms that Earth was hit by an Interstellar Object

After eight years of speculation, the Pentagon has confirmed that an object out of our solar system collided with Earth in 2014. This would make it one of the two interstellar visitations ever detected. The latest detection was in 2017 when the confirmed “Oumuamua” traveled past the sun at roughly 196,000 mph. This mysterious object was an element of surprise and led to many conspiracy theories about connections to possible extraterrestrial life. Surrounding Earth, there are many space rocks and asteroids; some scientists even predict that there are 29,000 of them. These asteroids are mainly classified as near-earth asteroids, meaning that scientists are aware of their presence and are part of our solar system. Researchers even confirm that about 17 of these meteors obstruct Earth a day. 

These interstellar occurrences are much different from a meteor hitting the Earth, as they are not from our solar system, and it is much rarer to find or experience a visitation from these rocks as they originated out of our galaxy. This interstellar collision in 2014 led Harvard Astronomers Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb to publish a draft of the sighting, which noted that a meteor burned up in the sky on January 8th, 2014. It was traveling about 134,000 mph relative to the sun when it contacted our atmosphere, which means that it was unbound, suggesting the properties of an interstellar object. Astronomers Siraj and Loeb said, “with 99.999% confidence” that the “size, trajectory, and excess speed” eliminates any idea to suggest that it is from within our galaxy.  

By Davik Yadav