1I/’Oumuamua is a very special celestial body.
As well as being the first interstellar object (ISO) to be discovered encountering our Solar System, way back in 2017, it has various other strange qualities which make it a scientific enigma.
Amongst its unusual features we have the following:
(1) It is the first ISO to be discovered. That means it came from somewhere else in our Milky Way Galaxy, outside of our Solar System
(2) It has a high length-to-width ratio of around 6:1
(3) It had a curious nongravitational acceleration (NGA) as it sped away from the Sun, despite there being no evident outgassing, in other words no indication of jets of gas from its surface causing thrust through the ‘rocket effect’.
The ‘Project Lyra’ investigation, initiated by i4is, is an on-going feasibility study into missions to 1I/’Oumuamua. Any mission is now a game of ‘catch-up’ because the ISO has been receding from the Sun continually from way back since its discovery in 2017.
Thus, with every passing minute, the ISO is travelling farther from the Sun, making this game of catch-up ever more difficult. We mustn’t wait too long to realize a mission, time is ebbing and the opportunity is diminishing.
If you want a summary of where 1I is now, including a logarithmic image of the solar system from above with 1I’s precise position highlighted, go to the ‘1I/’Oumuamua navigational dashboard’ here: https://adamhibberd.com/where-is-1i-oumuamua-now/