Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson recently took to Twitter to reveal, among other things, that he is funding an expedition to search for the remains of a presumed meteorite that crashed off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014. His tweet, which linked to a news article about the expedition, read: “I'm proud to have funded this expedition and it will be fun to go allong [sic] and see if we find something alien.” The expedition, led by Harvard professor Avi Loeb and set to embark this summer, is estimated to cost $1.5 million and aims to search for fragments of the object, which Loeb believes could be of extraterrestrial origin. Here we will delve a bit deeper into the expedition and its objectives, as well as examine the original 2014 event.

The 2014 Event and Its Aftermath

On January 26, 2014, fishermen in Papua New Guinea reported seeing a bright light in the sky, followed by a loud explosion. The event was captured on several smartphones and cameras, which showed a bright light in the sky followed by a large fireball. The explosion was heard up to 80 kilometers away and created a 15-meter-wide crater in the ocean floor. At the time, local authorities were unable to investigate the incident due to the remote location of the crash site.

Speculation About the Nature of the Object

There has been much speculation about the nature of the object ever since. Some scientists believe that it was a meteorite, while others think it could have been a piece of space debris from a satellite or rocket. However, Avi Loeb, a prominent Harvard physicist, has his own different theory. Loeb believes that the object was of extraterrestrial origin and could be the first interstellar meteor ever discovered. According to Loeb, the object's interstellar origin was confirmed to NASA in April 2022 by the Department of Defense's space command.

The Recovery Expedition

Propelled by his theory, Loeb has organized a $1.5 million ocean expedition—which we now know is being funded by Hoskinson—to search for fragments of the object on the ocean floor at a depth of 1.7 kilometers. Loeb believes that analyzing the composition of the fragments could determine whether the object is natural or artificial in origin. "We have a boat. We have a dream team, including some of the most experienced and qualified professionals in ocean expeditions. We have complete design and manufacturing plans for the required sled, magnets, collection nets, and mass spectrometer," Loeb said.

The expedition will use a ship with a magnetic sled deployed using a long line winch. The team will consist of seven sled operations, as well as a scientific team. "We will tow a sled mounted with magnets, cameras, and lights on the ocean floor inside of a 10km × 10km search box. A number of sources have been used to narrow the search site to this relatively small search box," Loeb and his team wrote.

Potential Findings

The size of the fragments to be potentially found by Loeb's team will depend largely on the actual composition of the meteor. For an iron meteorite, the physicist predicts about a thousand fragments larger than a millimeter. If the meteor is of stainless-steel composition, Loeb's team expects to find larger sizes with tens of fragments larger than a centimeter.

Loeb said that in case his team recovers a "sizable technological relic" from the expedition, he promised Paola Antonelli, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art, that he will bring it to New York for display. While there is no guarantee that the team will find anything, Loeb remains optimistic about the mission. "There is a chance it will fail," he told The Daily Beast. "Nevertheless, I remain adamant about the mission," Loeb said, adding that, regardless, “we will learn something new.”

Potential Implications for Science

If Loeb's hypothesis about the object's extraterrestrial origin is confirmed, it could have significant implications for science and perhaps even humanity itself. It would prove the first-ever interstellar object detected within our solar system, providing new insights into the nature of objects that travel between stars, as well as the formation and evolution of planets and other celestial bodies.

In addition, the discovery of an interstellar object could have implications for the continuing search for extraterrestrial life. Loeb has previously suggested that the object, if of artificial origin, could be a piece of alien technology, possibly from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. While this idea remains highly speculative, the discovery of an interstellar object of any kind would nonetheless stand as a major development.

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Conclusion

On the whole, the recovery expedition stands as an exciting and ambitious mission that could provide new insights into the nature of interstellar objects. Avi Loeb's hypothesis about the object's extraterrestrial origin adds an intriguing if potentially dubious dimension to the mission, and the larger potential implications of its ultimate findings for science and humanity could prove significant. While there is no guarantee that the team will even find anything, the expedition offers a remarkable example of scientific curiosity and exploration at play. And Hoskinson’s involvement in the expedition demonstrates a Cardano visionary who continues to propel projects forward that both figuratively and literally reach for the stars.

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