Astronomers revisit 1977’s iconic “Wow!” interstellar signal with a wild new theory

Recap: Encourage in 1977, a assorted radio impress from deep home got astronomers all riled up regarding the seemingly of first contact with luminous aliens. It all started when astronomer Jerry Ehman stumbled upon a startlingly intense burst of radio waves that lasted over a minute, captured in a single day by the Extensive Ear telescope at Ohio Sigh University. Scribbling “Wow!” beside the published records in incandescent red, Ehman scheme he had found one thing out of the ordinary.

There used to be ideal unbiased to your total hypothesis about alien verbal replace. The impress’s specifics hinted at one thing unnatural – presumably even extraterrestrial. In 1959, physicists Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi theorized that evolved alien civilizations would possibly presumably presumably also utilize the 1420 megahertz frequency, which corresponds to the signature emission of hydrogen atoms, as an interstellar hailing impress. And wouldn’t it, the Wow! burst produced a identical impress.

Alternatively, as regards to 5 a protracted time later, the Wow! impress stays frustratingly ambiguous. Endless theories had been proposed to existing its mysterious origins, from rogue comets to distant stars behaving unpredictably. Worse detached, the Wow! impress has by no system been detected again, despite a enormous resolution of makes an strive by radio telescopes spherical the world.

Now, a novel hypothesis has emerged from astrophysicists Abel Méndez, Kevin Ortiz Ceballos, and Jorge Zuluaga. In a non-notice-reviewed preprint published closing week, they propose that the impress used to be pure cosmic pandemonium.

Their scheme is that a blast from an uber-magnetic, extremely-dense stellar corpse called a magnetar would possibly presumably presumably also discover struck a cloud of chilly hydrogen gas, causing it to radiate intensely in a laser-admire beam detectable on Earth. This phenomenon, called a “maser,” is amazingly uncommon.

The researchers arrived at this conclusion after digging into archival records from the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Their evaluation printed that between February and Could presumably maybe well 2020, Arecibo had detected a few radio indicators bearing similarities to the legendary 1977 Wow! burst. Vastly, the origins of these transmissions are traced aid to the locations of identified chilly hydrogen clouds scattered at some level of the cosmos.

While these newer indicators weren’t as intense because the Wow! impress, Méndez urged to Recent Scientist that this dimmer activity would possibly presumably presumably also declare a less energetic model of the an identical tournament. He moreover talked about that the dimness would possibly presumably presumably even be due to the the absence of a magnetar in these more present transmissions.

Now not each person’s shopping this hypothesis yet, even when. SETI astronomer Jason Wright expressed skepticism to Science News, pointing out that the proposed scenario is “extraordinarily silent and explicit” and has by no system been seen before.

If appropriate, alternatively, this maser hypothesis would possibly presumably presumably also aid researchers realize how one other identical “alien” indicators would possibly presumably presumably also in actuality be pretend alarms attributable to energetic hydrogen clouds.