Claims of Extrasolar Spherules from Pacific Ocean Site CNEOS 2014-01-08 Disputed 14MAR2024

Claims of Extrasolar Spherules from Pacific Ocean Site CNEOS 2014-01-08 Disputed

Recently, a preprint has been posted to the arXiv site that disputes proposal that Be,La,U-rich spherules recovered form
Pacific Ocean Site CNEOS 2014-01-0 are from an extrasolar origin. Instead, they argued to be microtektites of terrestrial lateritic sandstone.

The preprint is:

Desch, S., 2024. Be, La, U-rich spherules as microtektites of terrestrial laterites: What goes up must come down. arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.05161.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05161

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2403/2403.05161.pdf


The proposed extrasolar spherules are discussed in:

Loeb, A., Adamson, T., Bergstrom, S., Cloete, R., Cohen, S., Conrad, K., Domine, L., Fu, H., Hoskinson, C., Hyung, E., Jacobsen, S., Kelly, M., Kohn, J., Lard, E., Lam, S., Laukien, F., Lem, J., McCallum, R., Millsap, R., Parendo, C., Petaev, M., Peddeti, C., Pugh, K., Samuha, S., Sasselov, D., Schlereth, M., Siler, J.J., Siraj, A., Smith, P.M., Tagle, R., Taylor, J., Weed, R., Wright, A., and Wynn, J. 2023.,

Discovery of Spherules of likely extrasolar composition in the Pacific Ocean site of the CNEOS 2014-01-08 (IM1) bolide. 

arXiv preprint 2308.15623
https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.15623

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.15623.pdf

Loeb, A., Adamson, T., Bergstrom, S., Cloete, R., Cohen, S., Conrad, K., Domine, L., Fu, H., Hoskinson, C., Hyung, E., Jacobsen, S., Kelly, M., Kohn, J., Lard, E., Laukien, F., Lem, J., McCallum, R., Millsap, R., Parendo, C., Petaev, M., Peddeti, C., Pugh, K., Samuha, S., Sasselov, D., Schlereth, M., Siler, J.J., Siraj, A., Smith, P.M., Tagle, R., Taylor, J., Weed, R., Wright, A., and Wynn, J. 2024. 

Recovery and classification of spherules from the Pacific Ocean site of the CNEOS 2014 January 8 (IM1) bolide.
Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society 8: 39.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad2370/meta


Related paper, reprint and press release:
Desch, S., and Jackson, A., 2023. Critique of arXiv submission 2308.15623, "Discovery of Spherules of Likely Extrasolar Composition in the Pacific Ocean Site of the CNEOS 2014-01-08 (IM1) Bolide", by A. Loeb et al arXiv:2311.07699
https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.07699

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.07699.pdf


'Alien' spherules dredged from the Pacific are probably just industrial pollution, new studies suggest. LiveScience, Nov. 16, 2023
https://www.livescience.com/space/extraterrestrial-life/alien-spherules-dredged-from-the-pacific-are-probably-just-industrial-pollution-new-studies-suggest


Gallardo, P.A., 2023. Anthropogenic Coal Ash as a Contaminant in a Micro-meteoritic Underwater Search. 

Research Notes of the AAS, 7(10), p.220.
http://ispcjournal.org/journals/2024/32/PhC_vol_32_Lomas.pdf

Yours,

Paul H.