Posted on 11/25/2020 5:18:25 AM PST by Red Badger
The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO)
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Amateur astronomer and YouTuber Alberto Caballero, one of the founders of The Exoplanets Channel, has found a small amount of evidence for a source of the notorious Wow! signal. In his paper uploaded to the arXiv preprint server, Caballero describes searching the Gaia database for possible sun-like stars that might host an exoplanet capable of supporting intelligent life.
Back in 1977, astronomers working with the Big Ear Radio Telescope—at the time, situated in Delaware, Ohio—recorded a unique signal from somewhere in space. It was so strong and unusual that one of the workers on the team, Jerry Ehman, famously scrawled the word Wow! on the printout. Despite years of work and many man hours, no one has ever been able to trace the source of the signal or explain the strong, unique signal, which lasted for all of 72 seconds. Since that time, many people have suggested the only explanation for such a strong and unique signal is extraterrestrial intelligent life.
In this new effort, Caballero reasoned that if the source was some other life form, it would likely be living on an exoplanet—and if that were the case, it would stand to reason that such a life form might be living on a planet similar to Earth—one circling its own sun-like star. Pursuing this logic, Caballero began searching the publicly available Gaia database for just such a star. The Gaia database has been assembled by a team working at the Gaia observatory run by the European Space Agency. Launched back in 2013, the project has worked steadily on assembling the best map of the night sky ever created. To date, the team has mapped approximately 1.3 billion stars.
In studying his search results, Caballero found what appears to fit the bill—a star (2MASS 19281982-2640123) that is very nearly a mirror image of the sun—and is located in the part of the sky where the Wow! signal originated. He notes that there are other possible candidates in the area but suggests his candidate might provide the best launching point for a new research effort by astronomers who have the tools to look for exoplanets.
More information: An approximation to determine the source of the WOW! Signal, arXiv:2011.06090 [physics.pop-ph] arxiv.org/abs/2011.06090
XO Planet Ping!....................
I'm not a fan of vanity license plates, but I'd consider 6EQUJ5 to be my vanity.
Intelligent life? How refreshing, not much of that here in the blue part of Ohio.
6EQUJ5? Whatever planet that is from, they sure have weird call signs.
Probably a window pane somewhere had broken and a shade pull cord had wrapped around a partially empty Coca-Cola bottle which bumped into a telegraph key when the ocean breeze blew through the window, generating the gibberish signals. ... Neville Schute
I bet it is Mr. Mxyzptlk from the 5th dimension - he was always such a trickster.
That code is a 1970s way of displaying the strength of a signal over time, effectively as a number of standard deviation from the baseline.
Clinically,
the signal intensity was measured as signal-to-noise ratio, with the noise (or baseline) averaged over the previous few minutes. The signal was sampled for 10 seconds and then processed by the computer, which took 2 seconds. Therefore, every 12 seconds the result for each frequency channel was output on the printout as a single character, representing the 10-second average intensity, minus the baseline, expressed as a dimensionless multiple of the signal's standard deviation.
In the chosen alphanumeric measuring system, a space character denotes an intensity between 0 and 1, that is between baseline and one standard deviation above it. The numbers 1 to 9 denote the correspondingly numbered intensities (from 1 to 9); intensities of 10 and above are indicated by a letter: "A" corresponds to intensities between 10 and 11, "B" to 11 to 12, and so on. The Wow! signal's highest measured value was "U" (an intensity between 30 and 31), that is thirty standard deviations above background noise.
.....Which one is he?....................
WOW
For Gods sake don’t send a signal!
We don’t have any working battleships. ...
Great! If we contact them, likely mere illegal aliens heading this way!
Probably vote democrat
Haha
Lol
Probalby the Formics
6EQUJ5? Whatever planet that is from, they sure have weird call signs.
~~~
Wait, doesn’t that say Beatle Juice in leet-speak?
6=b
5=s
BEQUJS
Somehow, I'm not impressed. There are untold billions of exoplanets we have NOT found. 2MASS 19281982-2640123 is simply one of "other possible candidates in the area" of those we HAVE seen. There are undoubtedly numerous more that we HAVEN'T seen. Simply naming one "in the area" is hardly proof that the source of the signal is intelligent life.
As one who watched “On The Beach” only once, well over a half century ago as a teenager, but still occasion hums “Waltzing Matilda” while I walk, I know of what you speak. How many others here, do you think, also know?
One of my favorite books and movie.
D-R-I-N-K Y-O-U-R O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E
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