- Oumuamua, an cigar like object that passed through our solar system, is now classified as an ‘interstellar object’ by the International Astronomical union.
- This object was earlier considered a comet, but it didn’t develop a tail passing near the sun, which is a main feature of a comet. Then some astronomers, considered it an asteroid. But it hardly gave any signs of general minerals existence, which are found in asteroids.
- Breakthrough Listen Project, a project to search an alien life, also didn’t find any link with alien life.
- The astronomer Robert Weryk was the first to observe this object, on 19 October 2017 through Pan-STARRS-1 telescope at Haleakala (Hawaii).
- Due to it’s higher speed, scientists believe that it is originated beyond our solar system.
- The International Astronomical Union (IAU) names cosmic objects according to certain rules, like—’C’ for comets, ‘A’ for asteroids. Since it doesn’t have any category for outer space objects, the IAU came up with new nomenclature. They used ‘I’ for ‘interstellar objects’ and called this streaking object ‘1I’.
- It was first observed from Hawaii, hence it was assigned Hawaiian name ‘Oumuamua’, which means ‘scout’ (a messenger from afar arriving first).
