An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal

[Admin]

A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system

An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal : Read more

 

[newworldsexplr]

A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system

An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal : Read more

If evidence can be found of an interstellar comet or other interstellar object over Earth in just the last 10 years, how likely is it that there are that researchers from Earth through robotic probes or eventually astronaut geologists like Jack Schmitt Apollo 17 astronaut could find evidence of interstellar objects on the surface of the Moon or Mars? They are each a fair bit smaller than Earth but of course preserve any rocks and I think the ratio of elements or the ratio of isotopes of any element better than on the surface of Earth with all the erosion here. Also couldn't some telescopes or observing equipment on the surface of the Moon or Mars determine the speed and direction of any incoming objects from space to their surface to determine if any incoming objects to those bodies are interstellar objects (and then perhaps obtain the more substantial remains of those bodies on the surface of the Moon or Mars (than would likely remain on Earth's surface))?

 

[Starcrow]

(...) astronaut geologists like Jack Schmitt Apollo 17 astronaut (...)?

He was the only scientist who ever walked on the Moon, but Harold C. Urey (Nobel Prize in chemistry, 1934) had nasty things to say about the NASA, geologists and astronauts.

"(...) Urey publicly criticized NASA for lacking first-rate scientists (...). (...) he challenged the space agency for not selecting astronauts with science backgrounds (...). (Exploring Space -- Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond, W. E. Burroughs, Random House, New York, 1990, p. 97n.)

"He [insisted] that the [Apollo] program ought to have been shaped primarily by the requirements of scientific investigation --by its potential science returns-- not by the simple need to land astronauts on the lunar surface to go cavorting around for the sake of politics." (p. 166)

"(...) He didn't think much of what [geologists] did (...).

" 'You have turned heavily to geologists', he was to complain (...). 'I know of some good, brilliant geologists, but mostly they are a second rate lot. This is known in university circles very well. I do not agree with Jim Conant who as president of Harvard abolished the Geology Department on these grounds, but we all know that geology attracts the less brilliant type of scientists. After all, it is [merely] descriptive, and very often they do not learn more than the most elementary things about chemistry and physics. The Geological Survey is filled with people of this kind,' Urey noted sourly. He would nevertheless see the day when the geologists came to constitute the vanguard of those who conducted the most important analyses of the terrestrial planets and (..) of moons (...).

"Nor was Urey impressed by the professional qualities of the astronauts themselves. Of the astronaut selection process, he complained that more emphasis ought to have been placed on scientific expertise and less on sex appeal, but given the acknowledged purpose of the Apollo program --to simply get people there -- 'any man or woman with an attractive personality would do,' Urey said contemptuously." (p. 167)

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Skipping over Urey's sour apples and getting back to looking for interstellar object remnants on the moon: that might be much more difficult than looking for them on earth. It is much easier to make a large grid of radar detectors or ionization trail detectors on Earth than on the moon or Mars. And, once an object is sighted and its impact point determined, it is much easier to get a person to any impact site on Earth than to an impact site on the moon or Mars,

In addition, the lack of atmosphere on the moon and the little there is on Mars might make the impact result in a crater of some depth, considering the ultrahigh velocity of interstellar stuff falling this deeply into our Sun's gravity well. Yes, the Earth's atmospheric drag would "cook" an interstellar meteorite, but so would the heat of impact on an airless body.

Still, actively looking for these things to fall onto a retrievable location seems like a good idea. I would just propose that we do it here on Earth, with the detectors looking at places like the deserts in China and North Africa, and maybe Chile, plus the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.