Per your request, we have completed an assessment of the debris found in the Bering Straight meteor shower of 1952. The samples found are most definitely the result of otherworldly sentient manufacture, and are known to be only a small portion of the quantity that has passed through our solar system over the last several years. The source of the debris is assumed to have been some sort of cataclysmic event involving a massive alien structure, possibly the size of Earth or larger. Estimates based on the velocity of the meteor shower at impact and the apparent duration since the meteor fragments were formed put the source object in the order of 100 trillion kilometers away when it shattered. At this distance, it is likely that bio-metal fragments have passed within the gravitational pull of every other planet in the solar system.

We have conducted extensive observation of the celestial bodies within ten astronomical units of our sun and ranked them as candidates for more extensive NSDF investigation. Our primary concerns in selecting destinations were likelihood of bio-metal deposits, proximity to Earth, and environmental hospitality. Topping the list of candidates for obvious reasons is our own moon. With the technological leaps provided by the bio-metal, it is easily within our grasp. Of the inner four planets, only Mercury has been eliminated from our list of potential bio-metal deposit sites. Its gravitational pull is too inconsequential, and our astronomers suspect that the sun would have stolen away any meteors headed in its direction. This leaves the ideally suited Mars, and the incredibly harsh yet tantalizingly local Venus.

The outer planets; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have all been ruled out as they are simply dense balls of gas. The ninth planet, Pluto, is far too small and distant to be worth an effort. This leaves only a few remaining candidates among the Jovian moons; the satellites of Uranus and Neptune have little to offer, and are still quite distant, but a few possibilities between Jupiter and Saturn are worth examining. There are 4 contenders among the 16 moons of Jupiter. Ganymede and Callisto are sizable, but they attract heavy cratering from the ring of asteroids that shares JupiterÕs outer orbit and pose too much of an uncontrollable risk. Io and Europa are both much closer in, yet still large enough to supply an adequate gravitational field for our purposes.

Finally, Titan stands out from its 17 siblings with a mass of over 100 times the next largest moon of Saturn. Though cold and distant, it offers the closest atmosphere to EarthÕs in the entire solar system.

More detailed reports on the six selected sites follow, including all relevant statistical data and the best available images from our telescopes and probes.

Best of luck,

Andrew Goldman