Darryl Z. Seligman

The Vera Rubin Telescope will discover thousands of interstellar visitors. To tell a natural object from a relic of another civilization, scientists have developed a protocol: they’ll study the light 'fingerprints' of these guests.

Since 2017, only three interstellar bodies have been discovered — Oumuamua, Borisov, and ATLAS. New research reveals: rapid sky motion renders most such objects invisible. Analytical models and simulations show that faint visitors streak by faster than survey cameras can capture. This explains the p