Oumuamua Is Not a Probe Sent to our Solar System by an Alien Civilization

Oumuamua, the first known object of extrasolar origin seen to enter our Solar System, has multiple unusual characteristics that, taken together, are very difficult to explain with conventional astronomical entities like asteroids and comets. Consequently, it has been hypothesized that Oumuamua is an interstellar probe that was constructed by an alien civilization. We demonstrate that the accomplishments that can be achieved with large space telescopes and interferometers in the alien's planetary system will completely quench any motivation for construction and launch of an Oumuamua-like probe. The absence of any such motivation attests that Oumuamua is not an alien creation. The existence of large space telescopes has important implications for a range of topics that include interstellar space travel, the zoo hypothesis, METI, and UFOs.

Comment: Published in Astrobiology in 2022. An arXiv article with the same title appeared in 2021, but, excepting Section 2, all of the Astrobiology paper and this arXiv version are new