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Past Events
The New Frontier of Interstellar Objects
| Speaker: | Prof. Avi LOEB |
| Affiliation: | Harvard University |
| Date: | November 1, 2023 (Wednesday) |
| Time: | 9:15 p.m. |
| Zoom Link: | https://hku.zoom.us/j/97566121955 |
Abstract
Over the past decade, the first four interstellar objects were discovered. They include two interstellar meteors, IM1 and IM2, detected on January 8, 2014 and March 9, 2017, `Oumuamua detected on October 19, 2017, and Borisov detected on August 29, 2019. Among these four, the first three appeared anomalous relative to known solar-system rocks whereas the fourth appeared as a familiar comet. IM1 and IM2 exhibited the highest material strength among all meteorites in the CNEOS catalog of NASA, `Oumuamua exhibited a flat shape and non-gravitational acceleration with no detectable cometary evaporation. In June 2023 we recovered spherules from IM1. I will discuss the findings as well as the possible technological origin for anomalous interstellar objects.
Biography
Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a bestselling author (in lists of the New York Times,Wall Street Journal and more). He received a PhD in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980-1986), led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1988-1993). Loeb has written 9 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial and Interstellar, as well as over a thousand scientific papers (with h-index of 124 and i10-index of 582) on a wide range of topics, including black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe. Loeb is the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and also serves as the Head of the Galileo Project (2021-present). He had been the longest serving Chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy (2011-2020) and the Founding Director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative (2016-2021). In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space.
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.