Astronomers Find Likely Source Of "Wow Signal" Received In 1977

Fifty years since a mysterious radio signal was received by a radio telescope on Earth, astronomers have claimed that they have found its source.

On August 15, 1977, at 11:16 pm, a radio telescope picked up an unusual signal that lasted only 1 minute and 12 seconds. The radio signal was detected by the Big Ear radio telescope, and it is still the most likely candidate for an alien origin 45 years later.

The signal was named “Wow” by astronomer Jerry Ehman when he saw its printout. He circled it and penned 'wow,' giving it the enigmatic name.

In a recent study published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the 40-year-old signal was thought to come from a Sun-like star 1,800 light-years away.

The Gaia Archive has information on 66 G and K-type stars, but just one of them is identified as a potential Sun-like star. The reasons behind the production of signal are supposed to be the hydrogen clouds from Comets 266/P Christensen and P/2008 Y2.

The "wow" signal remains the strongest potential SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) signal as of October 2020. 

The research further states that this potential source, 2MASS 19281982-2640123, becomes an excellent target for conducting observations in the hunt for techno-signatures. Another two candidate stars have a luminosity error interval that encompasses the Sun's luminosity, and 14 additional candidates have been discovered as possible Sun-like stars, although their luminosity estimates are uncertain.

The signal never got repeated after 1977. Many observatories did follow-up studies of the area over a number of years and never found another one.