Picking up on this thread, a group of astronomers led by Karen Perez of Columbia University recently made the first coordinated, multi-telescope observations of 2MASS 19281982-2640123, with the specific intent of locating a “technosignature” from the star. The peer-reviewed paper suggests that out of 66 stars that were within the view of the Big Ear’s feedhorn on that night in 1977, the star 2MASS 19281982-2640123 may be a good candidate for further investigation, by virtue of its luminosity and size. Source: Alberto Caballero.Īlberto’s interest in exoplanets took a different turn with a paper he published this year concerning a potential source for the Wow! Signal. 2MASS 19281982-2640123, a Sun-like star within the Wow! Signal footprint. The project focuses its efforts on a small group of G-type, K-type, and red dwarf stars within 100 light-years of Earth, and looks for transit signals that would be characteristic of rocky exoplanets within the habitable zone around each star. The project enlists astronomers, both pros and amateurs, to turn their telescopes to the stars in search of faint dimming events that might result from planets passing in front of the star. One such scientist is Alberto Caballero, an amateur astronomer from Spain who, as head of the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting project, very much has extraterrestrial life on his mind. Citizen Science Points the WayĪnd yet, scientists are still plugging away at the Wow! Signal, since it seems to be the best chance we’ve had so far to find out who might be out there. Forty-five years on, the Wow! Signal remains the worst kind of event, scientifically speaking: a one-off, a chance observation that provides a tantalizing clue for more work, but nothing more. No other observatories working that night picked up anything similar, and multiple attempts to listen to the patch of sky for a repeat of the event have failed to hear a peep. Then again, there hasn’t been much to support the Wow! SIgnal’s potential as an extraterrestrial calling card either. There have also been extensive efforts to provide alternative explanations for the signal, none of which have ruled out an extraterrestrial signal. The signal’s characteristics were also very much in line with what one would expect for an extraterrestrial beacon, given the rotational speed of the Earth at the latitude of the antenna. The frequency of the signal was very close to the 1,420-MHz hydrogen line frequency, and anyone capable of building a radiotelescope would most likely know about that frequency and might choose to use it in their efforts to search for other life in the galaxy. In some ways, it bears all the hallmarks of being a transmission from another technical civilization. In the 45 years since that night, the Wow! Signal has been at the center of a storm of scientific curiosity. The signal, which lasted 72 seconds, became known as the “Wow! Signal” thanks to astronomer Jerry Ehman’s excited note from the night of August 15, made in red pen on the margin of the fanfold hard copy of the data. As the fixed antenna swept the night sky thanks to the rotation of the Earth, a stream of radio noise entered the dual feed horns of the instrument, with a signal-to-noise ratio that peaked at over 30 times the typical background noise. We’ve already covered the story of the Wow! Signal and how we got to this point in the story, but to summarize: in 1977, a radio telescope in Ohio known as “The Big Ear” detected an unprecedented signal coming from the general direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The so-called Wow! Signal, much discussed but only occasionally and somewhat informally studied, has provided a guidepost in the sky, thanks in part to a citizen scientist with a passion for finding exoplanets. Luckily, a chance observation nearly 50 years ago has provided just that. Much better would be to have something to base sensible observations on - some kind of target that has a better chance of paying off. Devoting limited and expensive resources to randomly listen to chunks of the sky in the hopes of hearing something that’s obviously made by a technical civilization is unlikely to bear fruit. As far as interesting problems go, few can really compete with the perennial question: “Are we alone?” The need to know if there are other forms of intelligent life out there in the galaxy is deeply rooted, and knowing for sure either way would have massive implications.īut it’s a big galaxy, and knowing where to look for signals that might mean we’re not alone is a tough task.
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