2. It’s an oddly elongated, tumbling object whose orbit indicated it came from outside our solar system. Although interstellar objects – natural objects like comets or asteroids that move between solar systems – had been expected, no object like this one had been seen before. So what was it?
Scientists and others immediately began speculating and devising theories. Asteroid? Comet? Shard of a destroyed planet? On November 1, 2018, a new paper was released that raises again the possibility that ‘Oumuamua might be artificial – something like a lightsail or solar sail, a spacecraft whose propulsion method is the radiation pressure or “wind” from stars.