Rendezvous with Rama

摘要

AEONS ago, perhaps long before Earth it-self existed, a hunk of rock circling a star somewhere in the Milky Way was thrown out of its orbit so violently that it was ejected from its natal system. Thus began a journey that would, in time, take it within an astronomical hair's breadth of humanity's home planet. On October 19th this visitor was spotted by Rob Weryk of the University of Hawaii in pictures produced by Pan-STARRS 1, a telescope on Ha-leakala. It thus became the first interstellar interloper into Earth's solar system to be spied by astronomers.