Article Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb's “alien spherules” are industrial pollutants

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https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...spherules/

INTRO: Perhaps the biggest question in all of the cosmos is that of life beyond Earth. With so many stars and planets, and with the raw ingredients for life found strewn all about the Universe, there are enormous numbers of proverbial lottery tickets out there: chances for life to arise, survive, persist, and thrive. But humanity still awaits the discovery of our first instance of life beyond Earth, whether it be primitive life on worlds far beyond our own, complex life on a world where biological activity has occurred for billions of years, or intelligent, technologically advanced life that we might someday contact and communicate with.

That lack of success, so far, should in no way dissuade us from continuing the search for life elsewhere in the Universe. However, we have to be extremely wary of those who claim to see evidence for the existence of aliens where none exists. Recently, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb has put forth a series of extraordinary claims concerning alien technology, asserting that:

• in 2014, an object struck Earth that originated from beyond the Solar System,
  
• that object should have impacted the Indian Ocean off of the coast of Papua New Guinea,
  
• that an expedition he took to that location recovered metal spheres that correspond to that object,
  
• and that his analysis of that object shows that it is not only completely alien to our Solar System, but is likely evidence for technologically advanced aliens.
  

Unfortunately, an independent analysis not only disfavors the “alien spherule” hypothesis, but shows that the spherules Loeb recovered are most consistent with coal ash: a terrestrial contaminant from human activity since the industrial revolution. Here’s the scientific truth that completely undermines each and every one of Loeb’s specious claims... (MORE - details)