7 ms·

Astronomer claims to have solved the 40-year old mystery of the “Wow!” signal

136 points by Huhty 9y ago

noja 9y ago
Was "just" solved in a 2016 paper? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Cometary_emissions_as_likely_explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Cometary_emissions...
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Paper in 2016, first chance to empirically test the theory was in late January 2017, and now it's early June when a paper about the test makes it into a journal. Seems reasonable to wait for a published paper post-test before declaring it "solved", yes?
diminish 9y ago
Wow! but is there consensus that the source is a pair of commets with clouds of hyrogen emittting at 1420MHz?
madaxe_again 9y ago
Well, at least it wasn't people microwaving their lunch.
Baeocystin 9y ago
They have an interesting hypothesis. It would be a lot stronger, IMO, if the second horn had picked up the signal as well. Still, I am happy to see this kind of thought going in to the problem!
powertower 9y ago
I wonder if this is also a plausible explanation for the RF signals that Nikola Tesla observed earlier on in last century that [he thought] was of ET/alien origin - due to its repetitive nature.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  .... go on.... im listening...
- bbctol 9y ago
  Probably not, since this signal wouldn't be repetitive, and one of the significant aspects of the Wow signal is that it didn't repeat.
rimunroe 9y ago
A friend of mine mentioned the paper referenced in the article as as being super sketchy, and another astronomer said that it appeared to be a story constructed entirely of red flags. I'll summarize as best I can: * The journal the author claims it was published in (the Washington Academy of Sciences) doesn't seem to a reputation to speak of, or even have anything to do with radio astronomy http://www.washacadsci.org/journal/ http://www.washacadsci.org/journal/. Additionally, they haven't updated their catalog since 2013, so there's no way to even tell if it was published. * The author has been accused of exaggerating his credentials before. He is an adjunct professor teaching two introductory courses at St. Petersburg College. He got a position as the Manager of Planetarium and Space Science Studies at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa, FL, which he announced on his website as "[Museum of Science and Industry] MOSI Selects Prof. Antonio Paris to Lead Space Program" (http://planetary-science.org/mosi-selects-prof-antonio-paris-to-lead-space-program/ http://planetary-science.org/mosi-selects-prof-antonio-paris...). Additionally, his other credentials are suspect too. He claims to be the principal investigator at the site-B 10-meter radio telescope in central Florida. The "site-B 10-meter radio telescope" is his truck-mounted telescope. > He also describes himself as an astronaut candidate with Project Possum, a four day suborbital flight program, and the director—and apparently also the sole employee—of the Center for Planetary Science, which he also founded. There's been a bit of disagreement as to Paris' education and the accuracy of his work, which Paris vehemently disputes. He claims that he was a former US Army Intelligence officer and as such, much of his life's work is classified. It's not exactly a clear-cut history from http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20128/a-researcher-is-crowdfunding-an-investigation-into-a-possible-alien-signal/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20128/a-researcher-is... * A year when there were stories about him running a Kickstarter to buy a new radio telescope because all the other ones were booked for the year. Others pointed out that this was not true https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/apr/14/alien-wow-signal-could-be-explained-after-almost-40-years#comment-72367743 https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016... and super sketchy (read through the other comments too). It appears that he just wanted people to buy him stuff, not for any actual investigatory need. * Everything on this story has been sourced from http://planetary-science.org/ http://planetary-science.org/. planetary-science.org appears to be run by the author and the author alone. * The paper the article covers offers no actual comparison between the magnitude of the signal received and the original Wow! Signal. It only shows the raw signal on his own equipment, so there's no way to determine its magnitude relative to the original. The paper handwaves the question of magnitudes away as the original telescope being more sensitive, or the comet being older now. [edit] https://xkcd.com/1847/ https://xkcd.com/1847/
DrBazza 9y ago
No, this is work of one person published in an obscure journal, not A&A, or ApJ, or MNRAS, for example. BBC Horizon covered his idea recently. That's not to say it isn't right, just that the solution is still not agreed upon. Fast radio bursts only recently discovered, indicate how much we still don't know because there's just so much sky to cover, at so many frequencies.
- JadeNB 9y ago
  > No, this is work of one person published in an obscure journal, not A&A, or ApJ, or MNRAS, for example. BBC Horizon covered his idea recently. That's not to say it isn't right, just that the solution is still not agreed upon. The current story title is "Astronomer claims to have solved …", so 'No' seems not to be appropriate here (although the background you provide is surely valuable for evaluating that claim).
  - netcraft 9y ago
    The actual title of the article is "The 40-Year Old Mystery of the “Wow!” Signal Was Just Solved"
    - dsp1234 9y ago
      More specifically, this was the title at the time that DrBazza made that comment. It was changed to the current title afterwords.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
Isn't this trivially verifiable? 266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs seem to have a period of about six and a half years.
Simulacra 9y ago
This is a very interesting idea but I am suspicious of the source, and additional corroboration. Perhaps this will spur others to look into it and could turn out to be right. Such is science..
BuuQu9hu 9y ago
So in other words the old saying it was just swamp gas that you were seeing.
michaelcampbell 9y ago
> The Wow! Signal was detected at 1420MHz, which is the radio frequency hydrogen naturally emits. What does mean? Hydrogen (and presumably other gasses) just spontaneously emit EMR at some specific frequency?
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Yes. This particular line is the spin flip transition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line and is low enough energy that cool clouds of molecular hydrogen emit it. And that's why radio astronomers frequently observe at this frequency.
  - michaelcampbell 9y ago
    Huh, thanks. Today I learned...
greglindahl 9y ago
This article is terrible and not fact-checked. The Chinese just built a telescope bigger than Arecibo[1], and the 140 foot telescope in West Virginia used to be used for SETI before it was essentially retired... in 2001. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hundred_meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hundred_meter_Aperture_Sp...

136 points by Huhty 9y ago

noja 9y ago

Was "just" solved in a 2016 paper? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Cometary_emissions_as_likely_explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Cometary_emissions...

ubernostrum 9y ago
Paper in 2016, first chance to empirically test the theory was in late January 2017, and now it's early June when a paper about the test makes it into a journal. Seems reasonable to wait for a published paper post-test before declaring it "solved", yes?

diminish 9y ago

Wow! but is there consensus that the source is a pair of commets with clouds of hyrogen emittting at 1420MHz?

madaxe_again 9y ago

Well, at least it wasn't people microwaving their lunch.

Baeocystin 9y ago

They have an interesting hypothesis. It would be a lot stronger, IMO, if the second horn had picked up the signal as well. Still, I am happy to see this kind of thought going in to the problem!

powertower 9y ago

I wonder if this is also a plausible explanation for the RF signals that Nikola Tesla observed earlier on in last century that [he thought] was of ET/alien origin - due to its repetitive nature.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago
.... go on.... im listening...
bbctol 9y ago
Probably not, since this signal wouldn't be repetitive, and one of the significant aspects of the Wow signal is that it didn't repeat.

rimunroe 9y ago

A friend of mine mentioned the paper referenced in the article as as being super sketchy, and another astronomer said that it appeared to be a story constructed entirely of red flags. I'll summarize as best I can: * The journal the author claims it was published in (the Washington Academy of Sciences) doesn't seem to a reputation to speak of, or even have anything to do with radio astronomy http://www.washacadsci.org/journal/ http://www.washacadsci.org/journal/. Additionally, they haven't updated their catalog since 2013, so there's no way to even tell if it was published. * The author has been accused of exaggerating his credentials before. He is an adjunct professor teaching two introductory courses at St. Petersburg College. He got a position as the Manager of Planetarium and Space Science Studies at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa, FL, which he announced on his website as "[Museum of Science and Industry] MOSI Selects Prof. Antonio Paris to Lead Space Program" (http://planetary-science.org/mosi-selects-prof-antonio-paris-to-lead-space-program/ http://planetary-science.org/mosi-selects-prof-antonio-paris...). Additionally, his other credentials are suspect too. He claims to be the principal investigator at the site-B 10-meter radio telescope in central Florida. The "site-B 10-meter radio telescope" is his truck-mounted telescope. > He also describes himself as an astronaut candidate with Project Possum, a four day suborbital flight program, and the director—and apparently also the sole employee—of the Center for Planetary Science, which he also founded. There's been a bit of disagreement as to Paris' education and the accuracy of his work, which Paris vehemently disputes. He claims that he was a former US Army Intelligence officer and as such, much of his life's work is classified. It's not exactly a clear-cut history from http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20128/a-researcher-is-crowdfunding-an-investigation-into-a-possible-alien-signal/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20128/a-researcher-is... * A year when there were stories about him running a Kickstarter to buy a new radio telescope because all the other ones were booked for the year. Others pointed out that this was not true https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/apr/14/alien-wow-signal-could-be-explained-after-almost-40-years#comment-72367743 https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016... and super sketchy (read through the other comments too). It appears that he just wanted people to buy him stuff, not for any actual investigatory need. * Everything on this story has been sourced from http://planetary-science.org/ http://planetary-science.org/. planetary-science.org appears to be run by the author and the author alone. * The paper the article covers offers no actual comparison between the magnitude of the signal received and the original Wow! Signal. It only shows the raw signal on his own equipment, so there's no way to determine its magnitude relative to the original. The paper handwaves the question of magnitudes away as the original telescope being more sensitive, or the comet being older now. [edit] https://xkcd.com/1847/ https://xkcd.com/1847/

DrBazza 9y ago

No, this is work of one person published in an obscure journal, not A&A, or ApJ, or MNRAS, for example. BBC Horizon covered his idea recently. That's not to say it isn't right, just that the solution is still not agreed upon. Fast radio bursts only recently discovered, indicate how much we still don't know because there's just so much sky to cover, at so many frequencies.

JadeNB 9y ago
> No, this is work of one person published in an obscure journal, not A&A, or ApJ, or MNRAS, for example. BBC Horizon covered his idea recently. That's not to say it isn't right, just that the solution is still not agreed upon. The current story title is "Astronomer claims to have solved …", so 'No' seems not to be appropriate here (although the background you provide is surely valuable for evaluating that claim).
- netcraft 9y ago
  The actual title of the article is "The 40-Year Old Mystery of the “Wow!” Signal Was Just Solved"
  - dsp1234 9y ago
    More specifically, this was the title at the time that DrBazza made that comment. It was changed to the current title afterwords.

pavel_lishin 9y ago

Isn't this trivially verifiable? 266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs seem to have a period of about six and a half years.

Simulacra 9y ago

This is a very interesting idea but I am suspicious of the source, and additional corroboration. Perhaps this will spur others to look into it and could turn out to be right. Such is science..

BuuQu9hu 9y ago

So in other words the old saying it was just swamp gas that you were seeing.

michaelcampbell 9y ago

> The Wow! Signal was detected at 1420MHz, which is the radio frequency hydrogen naturally emits. What does mean? Hydrogen (and presumably other gasses) just spontaneously emit EMR at some specific frequency?

greglindahl 9y ago
Yes. This particular line is the spin flip transition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line and is low enough energy that cool clouds of molecular hydrogen emit it. And that's why radio astronomers frequently observe at this frequency.
- michaelcampbell 9y ago
  Huh, thanks. Today I learned...

greglindahl 9y ago

This article is terrible and not fact-checked. The Chinese just built a telescope bigger than Arecibo[1], and the 140 foot telescope in West Virginia used to be used for SETI before it was essentially retired... in 2001. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hundred_meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hundred_meter_Aperture_Sp...