Astronomers find new "WOW" signal!

a reply to: PhoenixOD

Its probably a strange explosion or event that we havnt encountered in our close space - i understand its a signal from a place quite far away. Like really far away.

originally posted by: ArtemisE
Another wow signal has been reported and confirmed. So what do y'all think it is?

Intelligent? Natural?

It's not a WOW signal and none of the sources claimed it was. The science writers are bad enough about making up fake titles without other people doing it too.

The WOW signal had frequencies very close to the hydrogen line which is an area in the frequency spectrum we suspect aliens might use to communicate.

The frequency pattern of FRB121102 was quote different and they sispect it is natural, and list some possibilities for what might cause it:

Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst

Just what that compact object is has yet to be explained. One theory suggests that giant flares erupting from highly magnetic neutron stars, known as magnetars, cause the bursts. Others suggest the bursts result from colliding neutron stars or black holes, evaporating primordial black holes, large magnetic stars, or are the death spasms produced when massive, slowly spinning neutron stars collapse into black holes. That last object, proposed in 2013, is known as a blitzar.

Note they don't mention an intelligent source as a possibility and i doubt it because unlike the wow signal the frequency was not stable around the hydrogen line but declined over time like we'd expect a natural phenomenon to do.

Here's a link to a paper about it:

arxiv.org...

originally posted by: lostbook
Wow! Another "Wow" signal. Pun intended. Wasn't there another new wow signal just last month? I think it was posted by Jade Star.

Correct.

And characterizing this signal as a Wow type signal is a gross exaggeration as it is a wideband, almost certainly natural signal.

The Wow! signal of 1977 and the one I referred to from the SETI paper I dug up were narrowband signals, the type which we only know that artificial technology can produce.

Nature does not produce narrowband signals.

These newly discovered fast radio bursts are wideband in nature which is why most think they are likely the result of some natural process.

I said as much in the other thread which was created on the same subject last week and is several pages long.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: ArtemisE
Another wow signal has been reported and confirmed. So what do y'all think it is?

Intelligent? Natural?

It's not a WOW signal and none of the sources claimed it was. The science writers are bad enough about making up fake titles without other people doing it too.

The WOW signal had frequencies very close to the hydrogen line which is an area in the frequency spectrum we suspect aliens might use to communicate.

The frequency pattern of FRB121102 was quote different and they sispect it is natural, and list some possibilities for what might cause it:

Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst

Just what that compact object is has yet to be explained. One theory suggests that giant flares erupting from highly magnetic neutron stars, known as magnetars, cause the bursts. Others suggest the bursts result from colliding neutron stars or black holes, evaporating primordial black holes, large magnetic stars, or are the death spasms produced when massive, slowly spinning neutron stars collapse into black holes. That last object, proposed in 2013, is known as a blitzar.

Note they don't mention an intelligent source as a possibility and i doubt it because unlike the wow signal the frequency was not stable around the hydrogen line but declined over time like we'd expect a natural phenomenon to do.

Here's a link to a paper about it:

arxiv.org...

It's not because the frequency wasn't near the hydrogen line that most knowledgeable astronomers think these are natural. It's because they are wideband in nature.

Could technology produce a wideband signal?

Sure.

Your car's spark plugs produce a noisy wide band emission in the radio spectrum. But so does the sun. So does Jupiter, so do lightning strikes, so do a lot of natural phenomena.

Radio transmitters broadcast narrowband signals. Nature does not.

BTW...


The whole field of radio astronomy was founded on the fact that natural objects in space produce wideband, noisy radio emissions.

This is just a new type of one. So for others who have posted, there's need to scream Aliens yet.

a reply to: JadeStar

Thank you for the clarification. I used "wow" signal analogy because being a layman, it was the only analogy I had for a mystery radio signal.

I made no attempt to make it seem intellegent in origin, but found it interesting and thought it was knowledge worth having. So a little marketing was in order. :p

originally posted by: ArtemisE
a reply to: JadeStar

Thank you for the clarification. I used "wow" signal analogy because being a layman, it was the only analogy I had for a mystery radio signal.

I made no attempt to make it seem intellegent in origin, but found it interesting and thought it was knowledge worth having. So a little marketing was in order. :p

Yeah, unfortunately though your 'marketing' was very misleading.

That said, SETI has received other "Wow!" type signals. Check out this thread: The New "Wow!" Signal - SETI's Recent Close Encounter With An Unidentified Emission