What Comes Next for Interstellar Hunting
Right now, finding interstellar objects is like winning the lottery—it happens, but rarely. Since astronomers started looking systematically, we’ve only confirmed three visitors in eight years.
That’s about to change dramatically.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will begin operations in 2025 with the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. This facility will photograph the entire visible sky every few nights, creating a time-lapse movie of the universe. It’s specifically designed to catch fast-moving objects like asteroids, comets, and interstellar visitors.
“As the number of these objects increases, population-level studies of the metal content in these objects and its dependence on heliocentric distance will be feasible, providing new insights into the extrasolar systems in which they form,” the study concludes.
