Omwamwi is not a space ship, but he could be "passengers"

Last Wednesday, scientists project a Breakthrough Listen directed gaze parabolic radio telescope green Bank National radio astronomy Observatory in the direction Omwamwi — the mysterious oblong space object, in fact the first interstellar visitor in our Solar system, — to scan for signs of intelligent life.

For interstellar object, the researchers conducted surveillance for six hours. During this time astronomers have carried out wiretapping in the range of four frequencies in total, we scanned several billion separate channels in the hope to detect a weak signal of a radio transmission, the power not exceeding the signal of your mobile phone. The presence of such a signal could say that Omwamwi is no ordinary space rock, but rather is an artificial object of alien technology on Board.

By Thursday, scientists reported that their initial observation of the subject nor to no avail. If Omwamwi is intelligent extraterrestrial life, then it is obviously good secret, as researchers Breakthrough Listen failed to capture any emitted radio signals. It would seem, here it – a complete disappointment. However, conclusions had to wait. The fact that during observation of an object, scientists came to the assumption that Omwamwi can really be interstellar transport for alien life, though not quite the one we could only hope.

Published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy article, experts share their observations and reported that "Omwamwi" can be covered with a dry, rich in carbon crust that hides and protects from direct sunlight in its depths of water ice. Scientists are not one hundred percent sure that the inside of the asteroid at the moment, do there is the ice, however, the spectral analysis of the object held by the team of Alan Fitzsimmons from Queen's University (Canada), indicates that long ago the object might have ice inside.

Different materials differently reflect the light. Conducting spectral analysis of light waves that are reflected from the object, scientists can find out exactly what kind of material (metals, rock, or ice) could reflect one or the other volume.

A Team of Fitzsimmons found that the composition Omwamwi very similar to that observed in sites located on the distant borders of our Solar system. Astronomers think Jupiter is located over the outer body may contain not only in its composition, but also on the surface a lot of ice, because it is very far away from the Sun. Billions of years ago, when there was the formation of the major planets of our system, many of these objects were thrown in its far corners. Some were completely ejected from the system, but there were also those that continue to revolve around the Sun at the very edge of the system, capturing its orbit a region called the Oort cloud.

Scientists have made the assumption that if other solar systems are formed the same with our system, way, anyone thrown out of these systems the target will contain in its composition of water ice.

"Based on this, we always assumed that the probability to see interstellar object composed of ice, higher than other conventional material," — said Fitzsimmons.

However, when Omwamwi previously flew past our Sun, it didn't seem object composed of ice. Scientists were confident that the object will show signs of evaporation and release into the space of microscopic particles, but this behavior had not been observed.

"It was a surprise to us. However, many of the team carefully observe the object, saw no dust, no gas, escaping from its depths" — says Karen Meech, University of Hawaii astrobiology, recently published an article about the observations of Omoloi, but did not participate in the research Fitzsimmons.

To find out why this is so, Fitzsimmons and his team turned to the past. The analysis of archival data in 80-e and 90-e years of the last century showed that many astronomers of the time were interested in the question of what happens to comets when their hundreds of millions or even billions of years to put into interstellar space. The assessment concluded that such cosmic bodies, there to live long not. They're just "baked" and evaporate. All the matter in strong electromagnetic fields interstellar radiation and highly charged cosmic rays. Previous studies have shown that these cosmic rays can literally dry up objects that contain ice. The latter evaporates and the remaining particles (usually carbon) combine to form a very dense and durable crust around the object. How thick is the crust and how quickly it will appear – exactly the scientists still can not answer, however, according to the calculations of Fitzsimmons, the formation of a crust thickness of about two feet may require about 100 million years. Time seems long, unless you consider that the age of Omoloi, according to astronomers, is about 10 billion years.

A Team of Fitzsimmons found that when the closest location to the Sun the temperature of the outer layer of the asteroid could rise to 300 degrees Celsius, however it could to protect the inside ice. The latter, though would become more in the liquid mass, but do not evaporate. On this basis, before scientists raised the question: could this carbon crust to protect from evaporation and also inside the asteroid life (in the form of microbes, for example), if any, there initially were?

Astrobiology by Karen Meech believes that outside in such conditions none at least known microbes to survive couldn't. But if the germs were a few metres under the surface of the asteroid, some chance would be available. In this case, the crust Omwamwi would be able to shield them from exposure to cosmic rays. However, the scientist notes that their predictions she's not implying anything.

"to survive in this case, it really would have been. But please stress that this does not mean that I agree with the fact that they are there" — commented Mich.

Commenting on the overall mission for tapping the asteroid, Mitch noted that without such adventurous at first glance of the projects we might miss something truly worthwhile.

"I enjoyed watching this project. It is definitely a gamble. In fact it turned out that this naturally formed space body. At the same time, if you look at the situation from the other side, in the data received, there was nothing that would allow us to fully refute its possible artificial nature. Without such adventurous experiments like this one with radioprogramas, we can miss something really interesting."