We now know that such a mission is at least possible.
Remember Oumuamua, the world's first interstellar object that astronomers noticed while traveling through our solar system? Now a group of scientists has proposed a mission to study it.
“We now know that such a mission is at least possible,” Adam Hibberd, a spokesman for the Interstellar Exploration Initiative, told a reporter.
The proposed mission, which the Interstellar Exploration Initiative calls Project Lear, will face extreme challenges ranging from logistics to financial.
First, Hibberd notes: 'Oumuamua is currently flying out of the solar system – and every additional year he travels about the same distance as from Earth to Jupiter.
Unusually, Hibberd and his colleagues propose to wait to launch a mission to Oumuamua in 2030, this year Jupiter will be in such an orbit, will be able to gravitationally accelerate the mission towards a distant object to incredible speeds.
Additional wait bonus: Scientists have stated that if we can detect easier access to an interstellar object during this 10-year wait, it means resources could be diverted to another mission.
Sources: Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech
