Amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero finds possible source of Wow! signal
Amateur astronomer and YouTuber Alberto Caballero, one of the founders of The Exoplanets Channel, has found a small amount of evidence for a source of the notorious Wow! signal.
Back in 1977, astronomers working with the Big Ear Radio Telescope—at the time, situated in Delaware, Ohio—recorded a unique signal from somewhere in space. It was so strong and unusual that one of the workers on the team, Jerry Ehman, famously scrawled the word Wow! on the printout. Despite years of work and many man hours, no one has ever been able to trace the source of the signal or explain the strong, unique signal, which lasted for all of 72 seconds. Since that time, many people have suggested the only explanation for such a strong and unique signal is extraterrestrial intelligent life.
Caballero began searching the publicly available Gaia database for just such a star. The Gaia database has been assembled by a team working at the Gaia observatory run by the European Space Agency. Launched back in 2013, the project has worked steadily on assembling the best map of the night sky ever created. To date, the team has mapped approximately 1.3 billion stars.
In studying his search results, Caballero found what appears to fit the bill—a star (2MASS 19281982-2640123) that is very nearly a mirror image of the sun—and is located in the part of the sky where the Wow! signal originated. He notes that there are other possible candidates in the area but suggests his candidate might provide the best launching point for a new research effort by astronomers who have the tools to look for exoplanets.
[Reference]: An approximation to determine the source of the WOW! Signal
I'm Not Saying It Was Aliens But It Was Aliens
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2020, @11:02PM (3 children)
Are they already among us?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @02:02AM
Yes area51
https://aeon.co/videos/in-a-remote-town-near-area-51-ufo-believers-and-locals-contemplate-the-beyond [aeon.co]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @02:12AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @08:01AM
I saw them vent
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday November 24 2020, @11:09PM
Seems sketchy but its more fun than pointing in a random direction to look for exoplanets.
2MASS 19281982-2640123 is around 1800 light years away.
I wonder when we will get the map of 100 billion to ~1 trillion stars in the Milky Way.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @12:10AM (4 children)
A transient signal was detected on one horn of a dual-horn system as it was running in automatic mode. They can't think of a reason for it (though I didn't see "equipment issue" listed), so like Tabby's Star (or an odd out-of-ecliptic asteroid) == aliens. Fast forward to today and this dude says, ok, we had a detection of aliens in this general area of the sky, so I'll look at all of the Sun-like stars that are there. Oh, there's one ==> found the source!
As an actual scientist, I'm rather underwhelmed by the whole argument from start to finish. I'll assume the SETI search has been over this whole general area umteen times but I'm not feeling bothered to try to figure that out.
Somewhere in Munich William of Ockham must be spinning on a razor-thin edge in his grave.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 25 2020, @12:42AM
Hey, Trump's election lawyers are trying to make more extrapolation on less evidence. Why not call this "proof" of aliens? The final signal from a civilization that destroyed itself after its first transmission.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday November 25 2020, @01:00AM (1 child)
Interesting narrative you're building there, Mr "actual scientist". Or just a strawman (which you might build unknowingly just because the phys.org "sciency journos" successfully clickbaited you)
The arxiv paper [arxiv.org], linked at the end of TFS
Do you see any claim being made on the line of "We found the actual source of the signal"?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @04:24AM
I apologize if you took my flippant characterization of their specious approach (going all the way back to the 1997 Ehman reference in the paper) literally. I withdraw my "we found the source" statement, and in fact, I will without malice nor reservation state for the record that neither in print, and I'm sure not in spoken word, has the author put those words together in that manner with that meaning. However, I will not retract my statement on the preposterous and unscientific line of reasoning running from the detection of a one time signal to the claims of "aliens!", even though it is well established in the philosophy of science to attribute that which can't be explained to aliens (I believe it is in Bacon's Valerius Terminus, if I recall correctly).
(This, of course, is the critical analysis I need to apply as a practicing scientist. Off the record, just between you and me, I think it most scientifically likely that this signal was so brief because this civilization obviously couldn't broadcast too long, lest their mortal enemies from the Tabby system should find them. It is well known that one of their solar sailing craft was blasted apart, sending the sail hurling off in the direction of unknown star systems.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @08:54AM
Are you calling him a cowboy astronomer?
(Score: 2) by Aurean on Wednesday November 25 2020, @02:43AM
... from the doge nebula
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2020, @03:36AM
I always thought WOW was a Blizzard initiative.