Two years ago, the world started an affordable interstellar sample return space program. The Galileo Project is an international scientific research project to systematically search for extraterrestrial intelligence or extraterrestrial technology on and near Earth. It was launched in 2021 by Harvard University astrophysicist, Avi Loeb.
The project had a deep-ocean expedition which retrieved small fragments of interstellar meteor CNEOS 2014-01-08. It has rare composition and in speed. They used a magnetic sled on the seafloor of the impact region off the coast of Papua New Guinea to find metal pieces of the meteor. This is similar to beachcombing.
Beachcombing is an activity that consists of peoople searching the beach and the intertidal zone, looking for things of value, interest or utility. In the 1840s, there were descriptions of a population of Europeans who lived in South Pacific islands, combing the beach and nearby water for flotsam, jetsam, or anything else they could use or trade.
The IM1 interstellar object was identified as an interstellar object by members of the Galileo Project Siraj and Loeb, before the project was established and confirmed by the United States Space Command in April 2022.
We do not have the technology and cannot afford to fly to other solar systems. It would be even more difficult to fly there and return with any samples. The Galileo Project enables us to find and analyze crashed interstellar objects for about one to ten million dollars each. This is the cheapest sample return mission for even space missions in our solar system. A sample return mission from the moon would be $100 million to a billion dollars.
The estimated detection rate for interstellar meteors similar to CNEOS is at least ∼ 0.1 every year (aka one every tend years). The resulting local density estimate is one million per cubic AU. There could be billions passing through our solar system every year. We can make better telescopes to spot them.
This program can be scaled up as we develop more space telescopes and significant ability to move about our solar system. The billions of interstellar objects passing through our solar system could come from anywhere in our Galaxy and some even from beyond our Galaxy.
We would know they are coming from outside the solar system because they will be moving at a higher speed than solar escape velocity. If we record the speed and angle and track them as they enter the solar system, we would be able to infer where they came from if they had no maneuvering capability. Presumably, many would come from collisions of asteroids in nearby solar systems. However, if there were old and large alien civilizations then more objects could come from those aliens. This is how after only a few decades after the discovery of plastic, we have filled the oceans with about 200,000 objects per square kilometer of ocean. There are over 3 million ship wrecks after about 3000 years of ocean travel.
Analyzing these objects would be direct data and science about the composition of things outside our solar system. We do not know what has been going with asteroids and planets in other solar systems. This would be direct data from material from those solar systems which we cannot reach.
The Galileo project will also scan for objects that were captured into Earth orbit that are particularly shiny. They will look for high-albedo objects are moving, spinning and emitting reflections from time to time. It should be possible to “confirm their existence through customized searches of modern data. The project can search for these glinting events more effectively than was possible with other surveys.
Again it is similar to beachcombing on planet Earth. A shiny object on the beach might be interesting and valuable.
We can’t go there and may not be able to go anywhere outside our solar system for a hundred years or more. However, we can have a robust program at looking at what washed into our solar system from outside. It is poor savages galactic science program.
The abundance of ISOs (Interstellar Objects) depends on their size and can be calibrated through future surveys such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Data from the James Webb Space Telescope may identify the nature and 3D trajectory of more ’Oumuamua-like or other interstellar objects crossing through or trapped within the solar system.
We can look for, find and analyze what we can reach. If there is technological debris mixed in with natural interstellar rocks then we can find it by looking.
You never know what the [interstellar] tide could bring.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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I wonder about Oklo sometimes
It’s a good idea. At least as good as SETI. It can also lead to finding a variety of interesting things that advance science even if it never finds evidence of Alien civilizations.
The same is true for looking for anomalous patterns in living things. We ought to be looking for evidence of “intelligent design” not as a concession to creationists but because it will become harder over time to distinguish naturally occurring from artificially designed life. Working at it, arguing about it, advancing understanding, is useful.
CRISPR emerged from trying to understand this sort of odd pattern. Even if not alien, such patterns may be of interest to add to the biotech toolkit.