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Scientists find hilarious answer to sound waves thought to be from meteor fireball
Scientists have revealed that sound waves initially thought to be from a meteor fireball may have been from a source a little closer to home.
In 2014, a blazing meteor was believed to have entered Earths atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean to the north of Papua New Guinea. This prompted a deep-sea search for potentially extraterrestrial (alien) material. However, new research from John Hopkins University casts doubt on the findings.
Scientists explain meteor mix-up
At the time of the meteors arrival in 2014, sound waves were recorded at a seismic station on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
These sound waves were originally thought to have been caused by the meteor fireball but according to Benjamin Fernando, a planetary seismologist at Johns Hopkins, they were more likely the rumblings of a truck on a nearby road.
“The signal changed directions over time, exactly matching a road that runs past the seismometer,” Fernando explained.
“It’s really difficult to take a signal and confirm it is not from something, he added. But what we can do is show that there are lots of signals like this, and show they have all the characteristics we’d expect from a truck and none of the characteristics we’d expect from a meteor.”
The team from John Hopkins will officially present its findings at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston on March 12.
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Findings cast doubt on alien material pulled from ocean
In 2023, materials recovered from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean near where the meteor was originally believed to have entered the atmosphere were claimed to have been of extraterrestrial origin.
However, the scientists at John Hopkins University have cast doubt on the status of the meteor, with Benjamin Fernando suggesting that the flaming space rock may have touched down more than 100 miles away from where the materials were found.
“The fireball location was actually very far away from where the oceanographic expedition went to retrieve these meteor fragments,” he said. “Not only did they use the wrong signal, they were looking in the wrong place.”
“Whatever was found on the sea floor is totally unrelated to this meteor, regardless of whether it was a natural space rock or a piece of alien spacecraft – even though we strongly suspect that it wasn’t aliens,” Fernando added.
