Interstellar objects passing through the Solar System
This text mentions work from 2024 on. Those parts were partly written without a live literature search and have not been checked by an editor yet.
Three bodies from other planetary systems have been seen passing through the Solar System: 1I/'Oumuamua in 2017, 2I/Borisov in 2019 and 3I/ATLAS in 2025. They are samples of other planetary systems, but the first moved in a way no visible gas explains, and how common they are is uncertain.
Why it matters
They are the only material from other planetary systems that can be studied up close.
Review
D. Jewitt, D. Z. Seligman, The Interstellar Interlopers, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-astro-071221-054221 reference checked
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- 91b196948643…
- Public log
- Entry 43, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
This text was in the PubPhys log by that date. The date says nothing about when the problem was first posed.