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Ohio State SETI Wow Signal Revisited and Debunked
An anonymous reader writes "SETI's famous 1977 'Wow' signal has been discredited in the Astrophysical Journal, using the University of Tasmania Hobart 26 m radio telescope to search for intermittent and possibly periodic emissions at the 'Wow' locale. Of the many 'maybes' that SETI has turned up in its four-decade history, none is better known than the brief, powerful one that was discovered in August, 1977, in Columbus, Ohio. Marked by the signal's rise from zero, to '30-sigma' over background noise, and back to zero in 37 seconds, the famous Wow signal was found as part of a long-running sky survey conducted with Ohio State University's 'Big Ear' radio telescope. To quote from their article in The Astrophysical Journal, Robert Gray and Simon Ellingsen, of Australia's University of Tasmania, 'no signals resembling the Ohio State Wow were detected...' So until and unless the cosmic beep measured in Ohio is found again, the 'Wow' signal will remain a 'What' signal."
So it went off the air...big deal. Maybe the little green men just left orbit....geesh.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
i have determined the "Wow" signal to mean "First Post"
this may actually be true. "Wow" was the first useful signal SETI received.
After all, what do we really know about what is out there is the farther reaches of the galaxy? It seems that as soon as something that might be credible is discovered, SETI just wants to slap it down.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
I've recently discredited people who claim there used to be a TV chanel 66 broadcasting in my area. I fliped my TV to 66, and there was no picture, therefore there was obviously never any such chanel.
'no signals resembling the Ohio State Wow were detected...'
If they'd found some sort of a pulsar or something to be responsible for the burst, the case would have been debunked.
But apparently they haven't, so they've only strengthened the case that something strange happened that day.
It's amazing how much fun you can have with a weather baloon and a radio transmitter.
Next time I'll send prime numbers in base 14.
""SETI's famous 1977 'Wow' signal has been discredited in the Astrophysical Journal, using the University of Tasmania Hobart 26 m radio telescope to search for intermittent and possibly periodic emissions at the 'Wow' locale."
Are submitters reading articles? There was no discrediting of the 'Wow' signal, just an indicator that they couldn't find it again.
Discrediting is removal of importance. Discrediting is when a national leader claims a 45 minute launch capability for a middle-eastern nation that turns out to have nothing of the sort.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
The work the scientists of this study have done is important and valuable, but don't overplay it: it merely limits the possibilities of what the Wow signal was a bit more than was previously thought. After all, there are no signals that have ever been transmitted/emitted from Earth that would have met the periodicity/duration criteria built into this test.
We conclude that the Wow was not due to a source within our flux density limits and repeating more often than every 14 hr, although the possibility of a longer period or nonperiodic source cannot be ruled out.
In other words, what they proved is that the Wow signal was not an intententional interstellar beacon, or if it was such a beacon, it is now off the air: whatever the Wow signal was, it wasn't aliens sending a galactic hailing signal, or if it was, it is on a longer period than 14 hours, or was shut off in the years between the original Wow signal's emission and the date of current signals from that location.
Sorry, somehow I s/discredited/debunked/ .
Obviously this is a forgery!
A hoax!
Please mod the parent down! Serious Slashdot articles should not be befouled with this obvious tripe!
No one could seriously beleive that the Field Commander of an advanced race stealthily taking over the Earth could possibly get confused as to which window he was typing in and accidently post revealing Alien internal memoranda on Slashdot, when he meant to Hyper-Email it to his Supreme Lord. Inconceivable! We, that is hypothetical Aliens are too advanced to such mistakes!
Obviously the parent article should be ignored by all rational humans!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I'm not entirely clear what new conclusions these people have reached. I was under the impression that there was always some question about the Wow Signal for exactly the reasons mentioned.
Probably the biggest question is why the second receiver did not get the signal.
We are pretty much left to weigh two imponderables: the probability that there was a terrestrial signal of exactly 72 seconds, or the probability that we happened to have caught the instant at which a powerful extraterrerial signal.
Of the two coincidences, I'm inclined to consider the terrestrial interference as the more likely.
The "debunking" seems to me a lot less convincing than the fact tha the second receiver did not pick up a continued transmission. At best it rules out a signal issuing from a single point on a planet with a short rotation period.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I have a vested, sentimental interest in these places so I'm going to plug them:
The Big Ear telescope, operated by Ohio State University, was built on the grounds of Perkins Observatory, between Columbus and the town of Delaware. Delaware is the location of my alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan University, which owns and operates Perkins as a public outreach center. (OSU used to have some financial involvement, but pulled out a few years ago.) In other words, Perkins is no longer a research observatory: it is entirely dedicated to educating the public about astronomy and allowing people to look through their telescopes. (In other words, it's awesome.)
For a couple years after Big Ear had stopped being used it just stood there on the property. I remember taking a walk around the grounds in 1998 with a friend, peaking in the windows of the little building with the control room, filled with junk. It was sort of sad to see it so neglected. Even worse, the land on which it sat had been sold by my school to the neighboring golf course. We actually ran into a golfer while we were there, and he took the time to tell us how much he wished they would tear the telescope down so they could extend the driving range. And not too long afterwards, it happened. Big Ear is gone.
There's some really great stories to tell about Hiram Perkins, too, but I don't want to ramble on too long... The short version: Perkins Obs. was the second observatory he built, and at the time it was completed, it housed the third largest telescope in the world. That telescope, now with an even bigger mirror, lives at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, but was still owned by Ohio Wesleyan until around the time I graduated (1998) when OWU sold it completely to Lowell. It's now operated jointly by Lowell and Boston University, which happens to be where I went after OWU. I took two trips out there to use it before I got my masters in astronomy and left BU to come back to Ohio.
Here's a few links to entertain you:
If you live anywhere near Columbus, I highly recommend visiting Perkins sometime. They have great facilities and a fantastic staff. It's a great way to spend an evening.
Vorbak: Gleebok, quit leaning on the "transmit" button... they'll hear you!
Gleebok: Yipes!
[At this point, their civilization is wiped out by a pod of radio-hating space-slugs. Who then turn their attention on the last remaining radio-transmitting civilization in the galaxy...]
Did anyone else notice that the Wow Signal looks strangely like the Matrix?
That's plain creepy, if you ask me.
"So until and unless the cosmic beep measured in Ohio is found again, the 'Wow' signal will remain a 'What' signal."
That doesn't sound like they disproved the signal ever happened.
"Derp de derp."
"Obviously the parent article should be ignored by all rational humans!"
hah, it seems the slashdot crowd concurs.
this was actually not bad though, not bad at all
People have been watching the WOW location since 1977, and it is common knowledge no new signals have be detected since the original blip. This isn't news.
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
I wonder could the "WOW" signal be what you we detect when two governments on some alien planet decided that they could not trust each other, so they launched all their nuclear weapons.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There are far too many imponderables to say much about the signal. For one, how other arrays were looking at that part of the sky during the 24 hour period that prededed the detection? Rather than cathing the "instant" they might have caught 72 seconds out of the last 112 or whatever. The signal could have been up for an hour before the array came onto bearing and died as it passed. Because it wasn't detected by the second "beam" doesn't make it impossible, just unlikely. Because we don't know the actual time the real signal lasted, we can't even say how unlikely that might have been.
The original poster's use of "discredit" and "debunked" are rash. There was no use of those words in the cited article. Nor was there any reason to do so. No accidental terrestrial source was likely. The signal strength argues against that. If the researchers had said they discovered a hoaxster who had visited the array with a transmitter capable faking the apparent signal, that would be "debunking" or "discrediting" it. As it is, who knows anything?
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.