In 1977, astronomers detected a perplexing radio signal that has captivated the SETI community for decades. Now, a new study suggests that this enigmatic ‘Wow! Signal’ may have a natural, astrophysical explanation, involving the behavior of hydrogen gas in the cosmos.
The Discovery of the Wow! Signal
The signal picked on by the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University in 1977 (part of a long-running SETI project, also at OSU) was a strong narrowband radio emission detected from the constellation Sagittarius. Every signal, except for one known as the ‘Wow! The 1977 live broadcast of a television show in the UK, Transmission Interrupted by the Alien Signal on Galactica or known as ‘Signal,’ was especially interesting for its frequency that was expected to be used by any advanced extraterrestrial civilization trying to communicate with us: neutral hydrogen.
It was observed across a 72-second period of time, the suddeness and weird character of it touched off “Wow!” in astronomer Jerry R. Ehman. on the computer printout beside it. This name has been associated with the signal ever since and is of legendary status in SETI lore.
The Astrophysical Explanation
While the Wow! Though the Signal has since been mired in speculation and debate, a new study spearheaded by Abel Méndez from the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo posits that the signal may be natural, rather than alien.
The authors used archival data from the mothballed Arecibo Radio Telescope, which had previously detected similar narrowband signals around the hydrogen line (though not as intense as the original Wow! signal). Signal. A person assumes that the Wow! In other words, signal was created by flash of this cloud of neutral hydrogen which was rare and strong event like magnetar flare or frankly quite gamma repeater (SGR).
Such an event can turn clouds of hydrogen hundreds or thousands of times more luminous for seconds or minutes, and the scientists suspect that what Big Ear saw “was transient brightening in one of many H1 (neutral hydrogen) clouds between us and SAGITTARIUS-A” [the radio source at the center of our Milky Way]. Arecibo’s signals were similar to the Wow! In signal suggests, their one and only difference in between them is the intension of signal and underlying mechanism would be same.
The rarity, the researchers write is due to a “highly unlikely alignment of source, hydrogen cloud and observer” that permits such detections in just one instance of this kind of triple alignment. While they were able to identify the clouds behind the signal, they could not determine what exactly was causing them to brighten.
Conclusion
The paper that resulted from the study provides a compelling astrophysical scenario for the answer to this long-standing mystery. Signal, revealing it to not be a message from ET but in fact bewildering on-again off-again transient astronomical phenomenon that affected the behavior of neutral hydrogen gas somewhere in the cosmos. Some SETI aficionados surely would be disappointed at this result, but it emphasizes the need to keep looking and for scientists not to over-interpret possible techno signatures they might detect. That insight could lead to more effective hunting for signs of alien civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy, because it would mean we might take a broader approach to what the signals look or sound like when we search for them.
