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 […]
News from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies
In this section you can read some of the latest news from i4is and the world of interstellar studies. If you know of appropriate news please get in touch and it might appear here.
Europlanet Symposium
Mention must be made of Annual Europlanet Science Congress 2026, Symposium, which took place in Netherlands this September. Our Executive Director, Andreas Hein chaired the session on Interstellar Objects (ISOs). T. Marshall Eubanks (Space Initiatives Inc, USA) gave the invited talk at the beginning, highlighting our efforts to coordinate the observation campaign of 3I/ATLAS. See […]
Science/Science Fiction Workshop in University of Derby, UK
We are delighted to highlight an event organised by our long-term supporter, PhD Candidate (and our original Executive Secretary!) Sarah Margree. It’s a star-studded panel with Alastair Reynolds, Ian C Douglas, Professor Ian Turner, our Deputy Director Rob Swinney and Luke Cabot. Then Sarah and Jean Asselin will lead an afternoon of science fiction writing […]
Principium 51
Principium 51 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.
Principium 50
Principium 50 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.
Project Hyperion – Winners Announced
London, UK – 23 July 2025 — The UK-based not-for-profit company Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) is delighted to reveal the winners of the Project Hyperion Design Competition, a landmark global challenge that called upon interdisciplinary teams to envision a generation ship—a crewed interstellar spacecraft designed for a 250-year journey to a habitable planet. The […]
Principium 49
Principium 49 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.
Principium 48
Principium 48 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.
Principium 47
Principium 47 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.
Principium 46
Principium 46 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.
Errors in Velocity Due to an Interstellar Probe’s Fast Encounter with a Star
Adam Hibberd A spacecraft is travelling on a very hyperbolic orbit w.r.t. an object X (possibly a star) which has gravitational mass, μ, meaning the spacecraft is only slightly deflected from its direction of motion. Our task is to quantify the errors in velocity, both longitudinal and transverse, associated with this encounter compared to simply […]
Principium 45
The May 2024 Issue