[Rockhounds] Claims of "Alien" Extrasolar Spherules from Pacific Ocean Disputed

[Paul]

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,

even "alien" 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 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.