South Atlantic Fireball Flagged as a Likely Interstellar Meteor

A fireball that streaked over the South Atlantic on April 1, 2026, may have come from beyond our Solar System, say astronomers Avi Loeb and Richard Cloete. Using data from NASA's CNEOS fireball database, they've named the object Polar-IM and call it the strongest interstellar candidate in that catalog.
The case rests on the object's speed and angle of approach. Loeb and Cloete calculated it was moving about 51.7 km/s relative to the Sun — too fast to be gravitationally tied to our Solar System. Its path was also tilted nearly 89 degrees, cutting almost straight up through the flat plane where the planets orbit. That steep, high-speed entry is hard to explain with a local origin.
To test the idea, the team ran a million simulations that factored in realistic measurement errors. None produced an orbit that loops back around the Sun — a result they rate above 99.9997% confidence.