Monday, December 15, 2014

The WOW signal



The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while working on a Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence SETI project at The Big Ear radio telescope of Ohio State University.The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for a total of 72 seconds, the full duration Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again. Much attention has been focused on it in the media when talking about SETI results. Both the length of the Wow! signal, 72 seconds, and its shape  corresponds to an extraterrestrial origin but its source remains unexplained. The region of the sky in which the signal was heard, lies in the constellation Sagittarius, roughly 2.5 degrees south of the fifth-magnitude star Chi-1 Sagittarii. Since then, its never been heard again.

4 comments:

  1. If you ever get up my way, go see:
    http://www.sierranevadageotourism.org/content/allen-telescope-array-at-the-hat-creek-radio-observatory/sieDB70300C95372C17D
    Very interesting place, the pics don't do it justice...

    ReplyDelete
  2. If alien beings found the earth it would be the equivalent of your parents coming home and half the high school class is at your house drinking beer and acting like idiots. As a human being I would be embarrassed to entertain visitors with the way we are behaving. I hope we stay "lost in space" till we attain the maturity to go with our scientific advances.

    ReplyDelete