IM1
The fireball of 8 January 2014 off Papua New Guinea, read as the first interstellar meteor, and the 2023 expedition that dredged the sea floor for its fragments.
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IM1, the 'Interstellar Meteor', and the Beads From the Pacific Floor
IM1 is a fireball recorded by US government sensors north of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, on 8 January 2014. Harvard's Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb argued its speed made it interstellar, and in 2023 Loeb's expedition recovered metal spherules from the sea floor there. This article sets out the record, the beads, the critics' replies and what is still open.