By Natalie Myers
This is the Wow Signal. So called due to how excited scientists were when they received it back in 1977. The signal was only ever received once and remains unexplained.
Back in 1959, scientists hypothesised that any civilisation from beyond the stars wishing to communicate with Earth may do so using radio frequency 1420 megahertz. This was due to it being naturally emitted by the element hydrogen which is by far the most common element in the universe so thus may be familiar to other species.
Following some initial investigations in 1973, Ohio State University Observatory, who were studying galactic radio sources, assigned the observatory over to SETI. Based on their campus in Delaware, SETI then continued the research.
Huge amounts of data were obtained and SETI relied on a string of volunteers to help catalogue and interoperate data received. On August 15th 1977 at 22:16hrs, a set of radio signal data was received at the observatory base. Printed out on computer paper, researchers could not believe what they saw. They had received a set of data of specific frequency and intensity that left them lost for words.
SETI’s priority was then to find out the where the signal came from. The telescope that picked up the signal, known locally as ‘Big Ear’ was not as precise as we would get now due to its design. It received data via two horns, each in a slightly different direction. This meant scientists didn’t know which horn received the ‘Wow’ data.
In the years that followed, many teams tried to find the signal using other telescopes, but the signal never appeared. On the 35th anniversary of the signal, a signal was sent from Arecibo Observatory with thousands of twitter messages baring the tag #chasingufos. No signal was received in reply.
The location of the signal is still debated today, however the general consensus is that it was from a sun-like star around 180 million light years from Earth. The star is named 2MASS 19281982-2640123 and is in the constellation of Sagittarius. This location is shown in the above photograph.
There are those who believe that the signal was nothing more than a coincidence, some believe it was received from a comet and others believe it was Earth based and bounced off a piece of space junk. We simply just don’t know. Whatever it was, it caused a scientist to write the word Wow next to the data and even all these years later we still can’t say for sure that it wasn’t an ET communication.
