A science controversy sparked by the possibility that meteorites on the ocean floor are extraterrestrial.

Several of the meteorites discovered on the ocean floor are thought to have originated from interstellar space rather than our solar system, a recent study claims. According to the experts, four such meteorites with odd isotope ratios that point to an extraterrestrial origin have been discovered. They are made of iron and nickel and have been found. They contend that these meteorites show that our solar system once collided with another star system, which may have caused the Oort cloud, a massive collection of comets at the periphery of our solar system, to form.

But not everyone is convinced by this assumption. The report has drawn criticism from several professionals for its lack of thorough investigation and reliance on conjecture. They contend that there are alternative hypotheses for the meteorites' origins, such as collisions with asteroids or planetary bodies in our solar system, and that the isotopic ratios of the meteorites do not provide definitive proof of their interstellar origin. They also draw attention to the fact that the study makes no attempt to explain how these meteorites may have made it from interstellar space to Earth or evaded being noticed by telescopes or satellites.

As part of a greater scientific effort to comprehend the past, present, and future of our solar system as well as its role in the galaxy, there is disagreement concerning the origin of these meteorites. As they provide a view into the variety and complexity of other star systems, interstellar objects, like the enigmatic 'Oumuamua and Borisov comets, have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. It would be a significant finding to find interstellar meteorites on Earth since they could reveal important details about the physical and chemical characteristics of other star systems. However, because it would cast doubt on some of the accepted theories and models of solar system formation and dynamics, such a revelation would also demand a high degree of examination and proof.

Philipp Heck, a curator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and a professor at the University of Chicago, was the study's principal investigator. It was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. 33 iron meteorites that had been collected from the ocean floor by various missions over the previous decades were examined by Heck and his colleagues. They measured the amounts of various elements and isotopes in the meteorites using a method called neutron activation analysis and compared them to those of known terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples. Four of the meteorites were discovered to have abnormally high ratios of nickel-60 to nickel-58, which they concluded indicated an interplanetary origin.

Nuclear processes in big stars yield the uncommon isotope nickel-60. There are traces of it in certain meteorites that originated in our solar system as well. The four meteorites were likely created by condensation from interstellar gas and dust, according to Heck and his colleagues, because of the high nickel-60 concentration of the four samples. This suggests that the meteorites were likely exposed to a different star environment than our solar system. A massive interstellar object that fragmented when it approached our solar system and was a component of a stream of interstellar debris that interacted with our sun about 4.6 billion years ago is hypothesised to be the source of these meteorites.

Heck and his associates theorised that this interaction might have profoundly affected our solar system. Some of the early planetesimals, or small rocky bodies, that were developing around our solar at the time, could have had their orbits disturbed by the gravitational attraction of the interstellar object, according to their hypothesis. This might have set off a chain reaction among these planetesimals that resulted in bigger planets and moons forming through a sequence of collisions and mergers. Furthermore, they postulate that this contact may have caused certain planetesimals to be ejected to great distances, resulting in the formation of the Oort cloud, which is assumed to be the origin of several long-period comets.

This hypothesis, however, is not universally accepted by other scientists in the field. Edward Young, a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry who has written a commentary on the work for Nature Astronomy, is one of them. Young is skeptical about the four meteorites' interplanetary origins, believing that their isotope ratios can be explained by mechanisms within our solar system. He claims that collisions between asteroids or planets with iron cores with different isotopic compositions can likewise yield nickel-60. He also claims that there is no evidence of a massive interstellar object entering our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, or of its influence on planet and comet formation.

Young says that he is not opposed to finding interstellar meteorites on Earth, but that he thinks such a discovery would require more rigorous testing and confirmation than what Heck and his colleagues have done. He would like to see more extensive investigations of the meteorites' chemical and physical qualities, such as mineralogy, texture, and magnetic properties. He also expresses a desire for further independent measurements of meteorite isotopic ratios utilising various techniques and facilities. He thinks that the study will spark greater research and debate about the formation and evolution of our solar system, and he welcomes the potential of discovering interstellar meteorites in the future if they can be proven beyond question.