From the article: It came into the solar system, inside 1,000 AU, around 1837. It wasn’t spotted until last year because it was too far from the Sun to reflect

From the article: It came into the solar system, inside 1,000 AU, around 1837. It wasn’t spotted until last year because it was too far from the Sun to reflect enough light for astronomers to pick it up. It's expected to reach the Kuiper belt in about 2024, and pass the edge of the Kuiper belt in late 2025. It will pass the most distant location the Voyagers have reached in about 2038. By 2196, it will again be 1,000 AU from the Sun. 2,600 feet (800 meters) long and about 260 feet (80 m) wide. It showed a really strong non-gravitational acceleration...which means its motion indicated that gravity was not the only thing dictating its path. Did any other celestial bodies experience anomalous movement at the same time? What if a larger (undetected) object was in its vicinity? It looks like it would be possible to reach it with current technology [1] (It's traveling at only 26.33 km/s (94,800 km/h)) I'd like to see people's guess at the probability it's "just a rock" vs their assessment of how risky it would be to make physical contact with it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Hypothetical_space_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Hypothetical_sp...