Why so CNEOS? 'Cos it may be about ET

Like most people, objects in outer space tend to stay in their own part of town. So, when an object comes trundling across light years, there is reason for much excitement. CNEOS 2014-01-08, the rather imaginative name given to a piece of rock, is now confirmed to be the first object from outside our solar system. The interstellar immigrant was spotted exploding above the ocean near Papua New Guinea in January 2014. Now, the task set by a Harvard team of astronomers is to find this mini-asteroid - rather, its debris. The plan is to dredge tiny fragments from the 1 km-odd deep bottom of the ocean within a 10.4 km radius off the coast of Manus Island.

Harvard's Avi Loeb and Amir Siraj believe that if found, CNEOS could give telltale signs of extraterrestrial life. This summer, they should be off to find CNEOS as part of the Galileo Project that systematically searches for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. The possibility of underwater meteorite dust letting us know once and for all that there's life outside Earth makes the hunt for CNEOS compelling. And searching for alien intelligence in the time of AI may just work. The 1972 science fiction novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky coined the term 'stalkers' for those hunting for extraterrestrial artefacts. We wish Avi and Amir's CNEOS-searchers happy stalking.