On 19 October 2017, 'Oumuamua, an object about 120 meters long, was discovered with a telescope in Hawaii. Based on its trajectory, it was clear that it was an interstellar object, i.e., an object that did not originate from our solar system. Its Hawaiian name means "messenger from afar that arrives first", as 'Oumuamua is the first interstellar object ever to be observed in our solar system.

In March 2023, a study was published in Nature in which the researchers investigated the question of why 'Oumuamua accelerated as the object flew past the sun. Gravitational forces alone were not a possible reason for the acceleration. The authors Jennifer Bergner and Darryl Seligman postulated that 'Oumuamua was accelerated by the thermal outgassing of hydrogen that had accumulated during 'Oumuamua's interstellar journey.

Niels Ligterink from the Space Research and Planetary Sciences Division of the Physics Institute at the University of Bern now presents new results in Nature on the mysterious flight of 'Oumuamua through our solar system. In the video, he explains that his models and laboratory analyses call into question the theses of Berger and Seligman to the extent that 'Oumumua must be much older than assumed and have a different composition in order to have produced the necessary amount of hydrogen for outgassing. Ligterink also comments on the speculation that 'Oumuamua could be an extraterrestrial spaceship.