Astrophysicists May Have Found the Source of Mysterious Wow! Signal

On August 15, 1977, the Big Ear observatory successful Ohio picked up an unusually aggravated vigor signal. The awesome was truthful unsocial that it prompted astronomer Jerry Ehman to gully a reddish ellipse astir it and scribble the connection ‘Wow!’ to item his amazement. Since then, the Wow! signal, arsenic it came to beryllium known, has puzzled scientists who were incapable to pinpoint its source. However, a caller task dedicated to solving the enigma of the awesome whitethorn person had a breakthrough.

Using archived information from the erstwhile Arecibo Observatory successful Puerto Rico, the Arecibo Wow! (AWOW) task uncovered akin information that suggest the 47-year-old vigor awesome was the effect of a uncommon lawsuit that caused a monolithic unreality of hydrogen to radiance ace brightly. A insubstantial describing the results volition soon beryllium submitted for adjacent reappraisal with a technological journal, the team’s project page states.

Abel Méndez, subordinate prof of physics and astrobiology astatine the University of Puerto Rico, who led the study, admits that helium lone began diving heavy into the Wow! awesome earlier this year. “I person to confess, the Wow! awesome for me, and for galore astronomers, was thing similar a fluke,” helium told Gizmodo. “So I ne'er truly paid attraction to it.”

For years, Méndez has been researching habitability crossed the beingness by observing stars and the planets that orbit them. In May, helium stumbled upon a video explaining the Wow! signal, and it got him hooked. “I thought, good that would beryllium thing astonishing to find successful our data,” Méndez said.

The Wow! awesome garnered truthful overmuch attraction due to the fact that of however comparatively tiny its bandwidth was portion lasting for 72 seconds of antithetic strength (it had a constrictive bandwidth adjacent the 1420 MHz hydrogen line). For it to person this constrictive of a frequence but inactive beryllium this beardown and battalion this overmuch vigor suggested that it was an artificial signal. This evidently sparked alien rumors, with immoderate believing the transmission was sent by an extraterrestrial civilization.

The researchers down the AWOW task wanted to spot if another, akin awesome could beryllium found, truthful they looked implicit information gathered by the Arecibo scope from 2017 to 2020. They recovered akin narrowband signals adjacent the hydrogen line, though little aggravated than the archetypal Wow! recording.

The Wow! awesome wannabes were a effect of interstellar clouds of acold hydrogen (HI) successful the galaxy, though they were 2 orders of magnitude little bright. Méndez and his squad judge that, for the Wow! awesome to beryllium truthful bright, it whitethorn person been caused by a abrupt brightening owed to a transient root of radiation specified arsenic a magnetar. A magnetar is simply a benignant of neutron prima with highly beardown magnetic fields, and it could excite the atoms successful the hydrogen clouds to nutrient a abrupt brightening.

“That’s rare,” Méndez said. “What’s the accidental of a magnetar being close down 1 of those clouds, and person beardown capable radiation to excite that cloud, and for idiosyncratic to beryllium looking successful that absorption astatine the aforesaid time?”

Méndez and his squad volition tally follow-up observations utilizing the Very Large Telescope successful Chile to place the nonstop clouds down the signals recovered successful the archived data. The astrobiologist is determined to larn much astir his newfound obsession.  “I learned truthful overmuch astir the Wow! awesome successful the past fewer months compared to my full life,” helium said.

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