Meet 'Oumuamua! The 1st Interstellar Visitor Ever Seen Gets a Name
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | November 15, 2017 04:57pm ET
We now know what to call the mysterious object from interstellar space that zoomed past Earth last month.
The interloper — the first known interstellar body observed within our own solar system — has been named 'Oumuamua, which means "a messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian, representatives of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced yesterday (Nov. 14).
The IAU also approved an official scientific designation for 'Oumuamua: 1I/2017 U1. This is a first-of-its-kind moniker; the "I" stands for "interstellar." Previously, small objects like 'Oumuamua have received standard comet or asteroid designations, which sport a "C" or "A," respectively, in place of the "I." [Solar System Explained from the Inside Out (Infographic)]
'Oumuamua was first spotted on Oct. 19, by astronomers using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii. The smallish object was first classified as a comet but then regarded as an asteroid, after further observations revealed no evidence of a coma (the fuzzy cloud of gas and dust that surrounds a comet's core).
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Pan-STARRS1 telescope
