Oumuamua news: Do intergalactic nomads really ‘seed the universe’?

“LSST will spot on the order of one interstellar object a year. So given that LSST starts observing in 2022, we may even be able to find our mission target before we launch.

“Otherwise, we have five years from 2028 onward that the spacecraft can wait at L2, the gravitational balance point out beyond Earth, from where it can pounce, fire its thrusters to go and intercept a potential target, one that’s on a trajectory.

“We’ll get to go visit an interstellar object or a new comet from the Oort cloud up close, and see it from multiple angles with our three spacecraft.

Comet Interceptor is a mother spacecraft and two smaller daughter spacecraft, one built by JAXA, the Japanese space agency.”

Interstellar worlds: insights from Oumuamua is on the Cosmos stage on October 11 between 10.45am and 11.25am.