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They were looking for spherule particles, or tiny fragments of rock, left behind by impact.

We found that the spherules along the meteor path have an unusual composition that suggests that they came from outside the solar system.

Loeb says additional evidence comes from the trajectory of IM1 as it passed through the atmosphere and broke apart before entering the ocean as spherules.

Droplets of once-molten material, spherules routinely form in explosions of ordinary meteors, and also in volcanic eruptions.

These spherules are tantalizing, especially given that many of them show compositional anomalies relative to typical ones.