The meteorite fell to Earth in 2014.
Astronomers are planning a fishing trip to land an extraterrestrial interloper on Earth: A small meteorite from another star system that crashed into the Pacific Ocean with energy equivalent to about 121 tons of TNT.
Siraj identified the object's interstellar origin in a 2019 study with 99.999% confidence, but it wasn't until May 2022 that it was confirmed to Siraj by the U.S. Space Command. There are no known witnesses to the object striking Earth. CNEOS 2014-01-08 is thought to be from another star system because it was traveling at 37.2 miles per second relative to the sun. That's too fast for it to be bound by the sun's gravity.
CNEOS 2014-01-08 greatly exceeded the material strength of a typical iron meteorite, which should make it even easier to recover, according to Siraj. Material strength refers to how easily something can resist being deformed or damaged by a load."Most meteorites contain enough iron that they will stick to the type of magnet we plan on using for the ocean expedition," he said.