
Alien Space Rock ‘Oumuamua Just Keeps Getting Weirder - daegloe
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/11/08/oumuamua-alien-asteroid-comet/
======
symplee
From the article: _It came into the solar system, inside 1,000 AU, around
1837._ _It wasn’t spotted until last year because it was too far from the Sun
to reflect enough light for astronomers to pick it up._ _It 's expected to
reach the Kuiper belt in about 2024, and pass the edge of the Kuiper belt in
late 2025. It will pass the most distant location the Voyagers have reached in
about 2038. By 2196, it will again be 1,000 AU from the Sun._ _2,600 feet (800
meters) long and about 260 feet (80 m) wide._ _It showed a really strong non-
gravitational acceleration...which means its motion indicated that gravity was
not the only thing dictating its path._

Did any other celestial bodies experience anomalous movement at the same time?
What if a larger (undetected) object was in its vicinity?

It looks like it would be possible to reach it with current technology [1]
(It's traveling at only 26.33 km/s (94,800 km/h))

I'd like to see people's guess at the probability it's "just a rock" vs their
assessment of how risky it would be to make physical contact with it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Hypothetical_sp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Hypothetical_space_missions)

