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Wow! signal
The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while he was working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University, then located at Ohio Wesleyan University's Perkins Observatory in Delaware, Ohio. The signal bore the expected hallmarks of non-terrestrial and non-Solar System origin. It lasted for the full 72-second window that Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected again. The signal has been the subject of significant media attention.
Amazed at how closely the signal matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal in the antenna used, Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment "Wow!" on its side. This comment became the name of the signal.
Wow! signal
The original printout of the Wow! signal, complete with Jerry Ehman's famous exclamation, is preserved by the Ohio Historical Society.
Time variation
The Big Ear telescope was fixed and used the rotation of the Earth to scan the sky. At the speed of the Earth's rotation, and given the width of the Big Ear's observation "window", the Big Ear could observe any given point for just 72 seconds. A continuous extraterrestrial signal, therefore, would be expected to register for exactly 72 seconds, and the recorded intensity of that signal would show a gradual increase for the first 36 secondspeaking when the signal reached the center of Big Ear's observation "window" and then a gradual decrease.
Wow! signal Therefore, both the length of the Wow! signal, 72 seconds, and the shape of the intensity graph may correspond to an extraterrestrial origin.
Response
In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, Arecibo Observatory beamed a response from humanity, containing 10,000 Twitter messages, in the direction from which the signal originated. In the response, Arecibo scientists have attempted to increase the chances of intelligent life receiving and decoding the celebrity videos and crowd-sourced Tweets by attaching a repeating sequence header to each message that will let the recipient know that the messages are intentional and from another intelligent life form.
Wow! signal
References
[1] Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies Handbook for Radio Astronomy (http:/ / www. astrosmo. unam. mx/ ~luisfr/ CRAFHandbook3. pdf), European Science Foundation, 3rd edition, 2005, p. 101.
External links
Location (http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-27.002855190521245&longitude=111.8023681640625& zoom=11&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00& slide=1&mI=-1&oI=-1) on Google Sky Location (http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourtel?lat=26.9500&ns=South&lon=291.250&fov=14.142& date=0&utc=2009-06-09+21:04:25&jd=2454992.37807&deepm=6.5&consto=on&limag=99.0&starn=on& starnm=99.0&starb=on&starbm=99.0&showmb=-1.5&showmd=6.0&imgsize=800&scheme=1& elements=) on YourSky (http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/) APOD NASA GOV NASA Signal 2011 (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110206.html) Dunning, Brian (December 25, 2012). "Was the Wow! Signal Alien?" (http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4342). Skeptoid.com. Retrieved 2013-07-01. Ehman, Jerry R. (May 28, 2010). "The Big Ear Wow! Signal (30th Anniversary Report)" (http://www.bigear. org/Wow30th/wow30th.htm). North American AstroPhysical Observatory. Retrieved 2013-07-01.
License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/