Did Scientists Just Uncover the First Interstellar Samples?

The petri dish warmed the tip of fingers. With my eyes glued to the microscope, I rotated it a few degrees to the left, revealing another section of sand-like particles to sift through. I was searching for metallic spheres that were smaller in width than a strand of hair — their possible origin, however, encapsulated the whole universe. Every time I saw a particle shimmer underneath the light, my foot bounced uncontrollably. The excitement quickly waned, though, when the source of that glimmer disintegrated between my tweezers. I leaned back in my seat and sighed. Was my task hopeless? As a summer intern for Dr. Avi Loeb at Harvard University, it was my job to sift through the samples he brought back from his expedition to Papua New Guinea. During this trip, he and his team surveyed the ocean floor for the remnants of a 3-foot meteor labeled IM1. This was no ordinary meteor, though. When it entered Earth’s atmosphere in January of 2014, it was moving faster than 95% of nearby stars relative to the Local Standard of Rest of the Milky Way, and withstood pressures that would have disintegrated a typical solar system meteorite. This data, coupled with the calculated trajectory, suggested that IM1 might have come from outside our solar system. The only way to know for sure would be to analyze its chemical composition. In order to do that, Dr. Loeb needed samples of the meteor. <a href="https://medium.com/@sophiebergstrom/did-scientists-just-uncover-the-first-interstellar-samples-dea4cb226a8b">Read More</a>