Researchers used a pair of telescopes to scan the zone the place a purported alien broadcast originated 45years in the past.
Whereas the investigation of the so-called Wow! sign got here up empty this time, the analysis group mentioned the collaboration exhibits promise in making different searches for clever alien life outdoors of Earth. It will even contain knowledge from the sky-mapping Gaia spacecraft to seek out extra sun-like stars within the area of the sign, undertaking collaborator Wael Farah instructed House.com.
“This doesn’t solely embody the Wow! sign uncertainty area … however extends to areas on the sky the place stellar densities are excessive, just like the galactic middle and galactic disc,” Farah wrote in an e-mail Monday (Nov. 7).
The focused zone was round a sun-like star positioned 1,800 light-years away within the constellation Sagittarius, which was recognized as a attainable zone for the sign in research published in May. “That is the primary time a focused seek for the Wow! sign has been performed,” Karen Perez, graduate scholar at Columbia College, mentioned in a Sept. 29 release (opens in new tab) in regards to the analysis, which Perez led. It was performed by Breakthrough Pay attention, a program of the Seek for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute.
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The Wow! Signal blasted from space through radio on Aug. 15, 1977, however regardless of its common sample throughout a quick span, nobody has discovered any concrete proof of a repeat sign within the 45 years since that eventful night. (The identify comes from the phrase “Wow!” {that a} researcher scrawled on a printout displaying the sign.)
Perez famous the search spurred the first-ever collaboration between two telescopes funded by SETI: the Green Bank Telescope and the Allen Telescope Array. The telescopes made their observations on the identical day, on Could 21, with Inexperienced Financial institution conducting two 30-minute observations and ATA making six five-minute observations. Their observations additionally overlapped for nearly 10 minutes, SETI mentioned within the assertion.
Farah, a postdoctoral researcher working at ATA, mentioned the telescope’s giant subject of view and different capabilities (like inserting extra search beams within the sky) will enable “many extra sources [to] be recognized and studied concurrently with the instrument.” In different phrases, extra candidate stars the place the sign originated would possibly pop up in future searches of the area.
A paper (opens in new tab) based mostly on the analysis was revealed in Analysis Notes of the American Astronomical Society. Open knowledge in regards to the search is obtainable at this SETI site (opens in new tab).
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a guide about space drugs. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
