On the Possibility of an Artificial Origin for `Oumuamua

The first large interstellar object discovered near Earth, Oumuamua, showed half a dozen anomalies relative to comets or asteroids in the Solar system. All natural-origin interpretations of the Oumuamua anomalies contemplated objects of a type never-seen-before, such as: a porous cloud of dust particles, a tidal disruption fragment or exotic icebergs made of pure hydrogen or pure nitrogen. Each of these natural-origin models has major quantitative shortcomings, and so the possibility of an artificial origin for Oumuamua must be considered. The Galileo Project aims to collect new data that will identify the nature of `Oumuamua-like objects in the coming years.