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Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

seti.org

41–50 of 75 posts

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#41

The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual: He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars. I can think of many diverse reactions to a meteor strike, but even NASA is singing the praises of this guy and his quick thinking.

> The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual: Maybe chunks hit many people, but you only hear about the ones who are prepped and ready.

I see a parody of preppers in there.

„Your bug out backpack is not enough, you need space bug out backpack”.

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t take any US action movie seriously anymore. Not because of plotlines like this, but because they portray the team at the white house as somewhat capable. You have to suspend your disbelief harder at the 8 o’clock news nowadays.

Watch Don't look up, if you haven't yet, it's brilliant.

I did. It’s depressingly realistic.

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#44

Did someone pay him for the rare meteorite? At least enough to fix the roof? Who should one contact if this happens?

someone recently SOLD a t-rex skeleton for $50 MILLION (61% complete)

so you should be able to sell meteorites that land on your property

only thing you can't own/sell is NASA Moon Rocks

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#45
post #25

Browsing that site, The SETI Institute appears to have expanded beyond its original goal of finding extraterrestrial intelligence into astrobiology and more. Perhaps the first attempts at detecting alien radio signals hoped too much? I have little doubt that, given the infinite size of the universe, that extraterrestrial intelligence (of some sort) exists, the question is whether we will ever detect it... It perhaps…

Detecting radio signals never made much sense to me. Even a few light years away, it’s almost infeasible to build a radio transmitter that could be detected above the noise floor. The amount of energy you’d need would be absurdly wasteful.

Wasteful by whose standards?

If you’re an alien civilization with several dyson spheres, surely at some point you’d have sufficient energy/resources even for such a “hopeless” science-y project, right?

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#46

> Researchers found preserved bits from near the surface of the original asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids Are we sure the guy who picked it up didn't just wash it with some sort of detergent after it cooled off?

No, many of the the molecules are too unusual. More details:

The amino acids have a central C (Carbon) that is connected to 4 parts, a COOH (acid), a NH2 (amino) and H (Hydrogen) and a R (rest, that is a polite way to say whatever). [I'm ignoring some less usual cases.]

The 4 parts can be arengad in two ways, "L" and "D" that are mirrors of each other. Living things (and corpses) almost have only the "L" version. But in the meteorite they found a 50% and 50% mix of L and D that is a clear thing that they were made by chemical reactions instead of living thing.

Also, in living things (and corpses) the possible/usual R are like 30. The meteorite has a few of the usual ones, and also a few unusual ones that is another clear thing that they were made by chemical reactions instead of living thing.

Also, the R they found can be explained by the expected chemical reactions on a meteorite. I don't understand the details, but IIUC there is HCN (Cyanide) and in some conditions it likes to react with itself and make the stuff they found.

So unless the guy is a mad scientist making weird experiments in his attic that are not very useful to rule the word, it's probably a mix made in the meteorite by chemical reactions.

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#48
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a typical consumer camera is going to struggle (even with the best analysis!) to have visual accuracy within even a few degrees of true (due to everything from high compression ratios in post processing to shitty optical properties in the actual camera) and that makes a probability cone that is pretty large. Still better than nothing, though!

building a WCS model (pixel XY ray vectors) of a camera is a solved science. Of course you can never expect it to be rectangular.

No kidding, that is what I was referring too. Precision for a typical doorbell camera is going to be several minutes of angle at best, which is my point.

Re: Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

#49
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

building a WCS model (pixel XY ray vectors) of a camera is a solved science. Of course you can never expect it to be rectangular.

No kidding, that is what I was referring too. Precision for a typical doorbell camera is going to be several minutes of angle at best, which is my point.

Oh well several arcminutes is excellent. Yes this is best case.
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