This article. That would mean we may have spotted the first object from another solar system passing through ours. I didn’t realize such a thing had never been seen before. The article indicates it’s path around the sun is not consistent with anything that would be orbiting our sun and may have come from somewhere else. I am wondering though if it could have been the result of a collision of orbiting bodies in our solar system. Since it is passing through and heading to out of the solar system we may never know for sure.
Space is very, very big and very, very empty. It is actually astounding (to me, at least) that an interstellar object this big is passing so close to Earth. It is a damn shame that we don’t have anything capable of chasing it down and sampling it. It could be many thousands of years before something like that happens again.
So long, A/2017 U1. We hardly knew you.
Can we name it Rama?
Very cool, thanks for sharing it.
It couldn’t have been the result of colliding bodies within the solar system, since it came from outside the plane of the ecliptic.
It’s possible two Oort Cloud bodies collided and flung a rock into the solar system; but the odds of that happening are pretty slim, since each comet is tens of millions of miles away from the others and the region is so vast (it stretches out in a sphere over a light year in every direction).
Then again the odds of any interstellar object coming that close to Earth are really slim too, so either way is equally improbable, and equally cool.
Only if we find a way to rendezvous with it. 
I wasn’t thinking about something coming that close to earth, but I suppose unless it was massively large it wouldn’t be spotted too far away. I figure something from outside the solar system has passed through ours, probably a lot of things, but it is a matter of actually spotting one. According to thejpl.nasa page linked in the articleit’s less than 1/4 mile across, and moving fast, I don’t know how far away we could detect an object like that. They seem surprised we haven’t identified one before (see quote), but then again our ability to spot such a thing is a recent development.
I have no idea how much information we can collect about it. If there were another civilization sending probes out this looks like a path it might take. I kind of doubt it, but maybe someday that’s how a first contact begins.
It would be a pretty good path for a general examination of the system. If they were interested in Earth in particular they probably would have aimed it a bit closer to us than 15 million miles. Assuming of course that their telescopes aren’t so much more advanced than ours that they can get really good images of us from that distance.
Playing around with numbers a bit–the estimate is that there are between 1 trillion and 10 trillion interstellar comets per cubic parsec. One cubic parsec is 2.72x10[sup]17[/sup] cubic astronomical units. So the chance of any interstellar comet to randomly be within one AU of the Earth is from 1 in 272,000 to 1 in 27,200.
So pretty lucky for astronomers that something came so close to Earth.
Nitpick: There isn’t “another solar system”. The Solar System is associated with the star Sol, of which there is only one.
Yes, the only people who would describe a group of planets orbiting a distant star as another solar system are–uh–every scientist and educated person on the fucking planet.
Something tells me that “solar system” will still be the common nomenclature even if we go off and colonize other stellar systems; the same way “Moon” became a general term for any smaller object orbiting a planet.
Notice that we capitalize our 'Solar System and our “Moon” but not the others.
There are three of them??? 
I think Extrasolar System is the proper term.
This is obviously a probe from the Klingon Empire. We should kill it with nuclear fire.
. . .
Oh, it’s going to pass us? Hell, we should study it then–just to make sure where the Kobayashi Maru ought not to go.
Tripler
Just saying.
Your nitpick is incorrect. What great authority are you falling upon except a mistaken pet peeve?
How do we know that it wasn’t kicked out of the Oort Cloud by a passing massive object? (That in itself would be interesting.)