Seeking rogue comets

The discovery of ‘Oumuamua this year was a first, but not an unexpected one. Alan Stern's 1997 article in Astronomy predicted this type of object ... 20 years before we'd see it.
By | Published: December 7, 2017 | Last updated on May 18, 2023
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Interstellar asteroids and comets are bodies that originated in a solar system other than our own.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
On October 19, a University of Hawaii astronomer spotted something unusual in his images. That something turned out to be ‘Oumuamua, our solar system’s first confirmed interstellar visitor.

But as we mentioned in our news coverage of the discovery, planetary scientist Alan Stern predicted such a discovery 20 years ago, in our February 1997 issue. If you’d like to read his prophetic feature, “Seeking rogue comets,” it’s available for download below.

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