Science.-45 Years Since “Wow”, The Most Mysterious Extraterrestrial Signal – Publimetro México

Madrid, 16 (European press)

However, its authenticity as coming from ‘extraterrestrial intelligence’ has been questioned since that night on August 15, 1977 – now 45 years ago – at 03:16 UTC, when astronomer Jerry Iman used the Large Radio Telescope at the University of Ohio State to sweep the sky for signs that may have originated from an extraterrestrial civilization.

That night, Iman found something. And since that night, astronomers have been trying to figure out what that means. A radio telescope in the direction of the three star systems called Chi Sagittarii, in the constellation Sagittarius, indicated a 72-second burst of radio waves, a signal much stronger than background noise. On the observatory’s computer printout, Iman captioned the explosion record with “Wow!”

This enthusiasm wasn’t an exaggeration, it was the kind of signals he was looking for, the kind of signals astronomers believe an extraterrestrial civilization is technically capable of producing.

The “Big Ear” edition, which is the nickname for the Ohio State University Radio Telescope, has a set of seemingly random numbers and letters, but Ehm marked out a set of numbers “6EQUJ5” with other circles around it in red pen. “6” and “7” are in separate columns. This particular code first uses the numbers 1 through 9 and then the alphabet from A to Z to indicate the strength of the signal. As the impulse suggests, the signal strength reached a “6” and then exploded across the letters to reach a peak “U” before returning back to the numerical scale to “5.” Then a slight ripple occurred from the main signal (circled “6” and “7”).

However, since that day in 1977, no signal from that castle has been repeatedly revealed. Even after the SETI Institute was founded in 1984, and countless efforts were made to find another similar radio signal burst, astronomers faced the silence of the universe. A problem that only exacerbated the annoyance of the Fermi Paradox.

Skeptical that the signal originated from a distant advanced civilization, Ehman himself recently stated that it could be related to an FRB (Fast Radio Burst). Astronomer Antonio Paris, of St. Petersburg College in Florida, asserts that the origin of the signal could be a non-catalogized comet.