1I/'Oumuamua (Illustration)

 1I/'Oumuamua (Illustration)

This artist’s illustration shows the first identified interstellar visitor, 1I/'Oumuamua, discovered in 2017. The wayward object swung within 24 million miles of the Sun before racing out of the solar system. 'Oumuamua still defies any simple categorization. It did not behave like a comet, and it had a variety of unusual characteristics. As the complex rotation of the object made it difficult to determine the exact shape, there are many models of what it could look like.

Credits

Artwork

NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI)