Interstellar Expedition
In 2022, Jeff retired from the US Geological Survey and joined the Galileo Project (Harvard). See https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/home
In June, 2023, Jeff served as the Geoscientist on the M/V Silver Star, on the IM1 expedition to the SW Pacific north of Papua New Guinea.
Our objective was to troll the bottom of the seafloor (~1,500 to 2,200 meters depths) for ablation spherules of the first interstellar object recognized by the US Space Force. IM1, for Interstellar Meteor 1, arrived on 8 January 2014. It detonated in the earth’s atmosphere at ~17 km altitude, while exceeding 45 km/sec incoming relative velocity. This meant that it survived until ram pressure on the object exceeded 200 MPa (200 million atmosphere pressures).
It was far stronger than stainless steel… eg, it was fabricated.
We found more than 20 spherules with very unusual chemistry: hundreds of times the normal solar system levels of Beryllium, Lanthanum, and Uranium. In addition, the iron isotope ratios were far beyond the range of Fe ratios from anything in our solar system. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254124004959?via%3Dihub
Remember Pioneers 1 & 2? Voyagers 1 & 2? The New Horizons spacecraft? They have completed their missions and are now headed to interstellar space: space trash.
We believe we have found someone else’s “space trash” from millions of years ago…
…and it was a fabricated object.
