RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It?

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 4:29:59 PM

Rule

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen
The 'Wow' signal was on the 10 Khz band. This is a very long wavelength and not much good for transmitting information

That is ten thousand waves per second. 72 seconds = 720 thousand waves. It also was a complex signal. I have not studied this signal, so I will have to do a guessstimate. Let's say that the square root correlates to the information content, that is about 850 characters. Let's say that three characters represent a word, then the message has about three hundred words. I bet a lot of secret military communication is ten times shorter.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen
not much good for transmitting information

So ordinary Earth people would not tune in to that frequency. Seems to me a perfect frequency for humans to transmit secret messages.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen
Due to the nature of RF propogation an intentional signal at this frequency would be best transmitted and received by very long, several miles at least, antennas.

We have plenty of such long lines on Earth. However, apparently the signal was well received by a much smaller radiotelescope, so it appears that antenna's miles long are not required for reception - and likely therefore also not for transmission.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen
While the signal was scientifically fascinating and certain segments of the populace latched onto the 'wow' statement the signal is illogical as an intentional signal either as one used for communication or as a sort of reverse SETI transmission.

Illogical signals are perfect for secret messages. Thus everything points to a human transmission by an advanced Earth spacecraft.

< Message edited by Rule -- 8/28/2009 4:30:56 PM >

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 4:35:42 PM

ThatDamnedPanda

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Rule, we were posting at almost the same time, so you might not have noticed the reply i posted while you were typing that response. Actually, Ken was mistaken - the signal was transmitted at the 1420 Mhz frequency, not 10 Khz. I think he just misread one of the linked articles.

Not to be pedantic, I just didn't want the thread to get steered down a dead end road.

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 4:40:09 PM

Rule

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I noticed your correction after I posted. I did a bit of radio stuff fifteen years ago, but have forgotten most of it. Anyway, I suspect it doesn't matter much. It increases the information content perhaps tenfold, so say three thousand to four thousand words; must have been an important message to Earth Headquarters.

Edited to add: Of course them frequencies must be kept clear. Wouldn't want some yokel from Farmland to clog up those strategic Earth spacecraft frequencies.

< Message edited by Rule -- 8/28/2009 4:43:34 PM >

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 6:46:49 PM

thornhappy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda

10 Khz band? No it wasn't, Ken. I think you misread. It was actually at the 1420 Mhz band, which is incidentally another data point in support of the theory that it was an intentional SETI communication. The signal was determined to be either 1420.356 Mhz or 1420.456 Mhz, both within 50 Khz of the so-called "hydrogen band" - the frequency which radio astronomers regard as most likely to be used by other civilizations to attempt contact. Which, in turn, also supports the argument that it was not a terrestrial source - terrestrial transmitters are supposed to keep that frequency clear just to avoid the possibility of any such confusion.

If it's in the hydrogen band, it could've been a hellacious coronal mass ejection (or other such outburst) from the sun, couldn't it?

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 7:24:12 PM

Rule

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No. 72 seconds? No. Besides, astronomers kinda know where the sun is to be found.

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 7:36:47 PM

ThatDamnedPanda

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Good question. I'm guessing no, because only one of the two horns on the radio telescope detected the signal. That indicates a very discrete point source. If it had been from the sun, which was on the other side of the Earth at that time, every radio telescope on the planet should have gone off the scale at the same time.

But even so, I don't think coronal mass ejections typically emit unusually high radio outbursts. Not as a primary source, at any rate. If I recall correctly, as the ejected mass hurtles through space at high velocities, it drives an actual shock wave in the interplanetary magnetic field, and it's this shock wave that produces the radio bursts. I believe another mechanism that can cause the radio bursts is when a fast-moving CME overtakes an earlier, slower-moving CME, and the interaction between the charged particles in these two parcels of electrified, magnetic gas will emit radio waves. But I don't believe either of these phenomena would necessarily emit at the hydrogen line; and in fact, are probably generalized events that emit over a broad range of frequencies. I'm probably wrong about some of that, but have no idea which part, and am reasonably confident I have it substantially correct.

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 9:12:48 PM

DomKen

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Did some double checking. the source I used was wrong. It said 10khz band when it should have said 10khz channel. My bad.

However if it was on the hydrogen line it makes virtually no sense as an frequency chosen for intentional communication, because of all the RF noise around that frequency, so if it was extraterrestrial signal it basically has to be an intentional SETI transmission, which is why we look there. However if a civilization was intentionally transmitting a signal it is unlikely that it would have been received only once. The particular part of the sky that was the origin of the 'wow' signal has been listened to quite extensively since then with no results.

To be blunt I don't think it was a signal with an intelligent origin and neither does hardly anyone in the field.

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 9:27:26 PM

ThatDamnedPanda

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I'd be interested in seeing the link to whatever poll supports the assertion that hardly anyone in the field believes it was extraterrestrial in origin.

As far as the signal not repeating, that's meaningless. Our own civilization has made only one attempt to send such a signal to other civilizations; a broadcast from Arecibo Radio Telescope in 1974. We sent out one signal, one time. The fact that we never repeated our own signal certainly doesn't mean our signal wasn't authentic, does it?

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 9:28:07 PM

TheHeretic

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Any thoughts I offered about where the signal came from would be total speculation, Panda, and my hit percentage on extra-terrestrial matters isn't good.

Can I offer that I'm ok with the idea that we aren't alone in the universe, and that I hope and pray that we are not the best and brightest the universe has to offer?

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 9:33:38 PM

thornhappy

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Anyone heard the latest from him? The last line in Wiki is "In his most recent writings, Ehman resists "drawing vast conclusions from half-vast data."" Not sure when that was.

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/28/2009 9:44:34 PM

ThatDamnedPanda

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quote:

ORIGINAL: thornhappy

Anyone heard the latest from him? The last line in Wiki is "In his most recent writings, Ehman resists "drawing vast conclusions from half-vast data."" Not sure when that was.

Yes, that quote was from his 30th anniversary report, 2 years ago. The full quote is as follows -

quote:

Thus, since all of the possibilities of a terrestrial origin have been either ruled out or seem improbable, and since the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin has not been able to be ruled out, I must conclude that an ETI (ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) might have sent the signal that we received as the Wow! source. The fact that we saw the signal in only one beam could be due to an ETI sending a beacon signal in our direction and then sending it in another direction that we couldn't detect. Of course, being a scientist, I await the reception of additional signals like the Wow! source that are able to be received and analyzed by many observatories. Thus, I must state that the origin of the Wow! signal is still an open question for me. There is simply too little data to draw many conclusions. In other words, as I stated above, I choose not to "draw vast conclusions from 'half-vast' data".

Here's a link to that report...

A link to that report

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/29/2009 6:30:15 AM

Starbuck09

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Panda like Ehman says without hearing a similar signal again to compare this will only ever be an anomaly. I think it is conceivable that there was an intelligence behind the signal though the characteristics of the transmission are quite odd if it was so. It is also possible that it was a terrestrial source and that though the odds against it are enormous that it was simply a freak occurence a conveniently ''placed'' piece of space debris in the right place at the right time. I would love if it was some alien communication but the man's right when he says you can't really draw conclusions from this alone.
On another note if you want some other weird noises [not transmissions sadly] check out the bloop noise and quackers. The former is easy to find just type it in google the latter is really hard to find information on as most of it's in Russian but it was a phenomenon that there submarines encountered [regularly] and remains completely unexplained, well worth checking out on a quiet afternoon!

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RE: The "Wow" Signal - Was It Or Wasn't It? - 8/29/2009 7:11:20 AM

rikigrl

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i came across this just the other day... http://www.wimp.com/hubblefield/ how anyone could watch this vid and still believe that we are the only sentient beings in existence is beyond me.

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