WOW! signal from space

reply to post by Visual_Death


So the ETs think we are really rude now!

It seems that the length of the actual signal, in terms of time was some 70 seconds. Therefore it rules out it being a satellite with an actual *moving orbit*. If it were geostationary in orbit, well it would still be there in the same place. It isn't so it is't that. There are however satellites that have what is called a Molniya orbit which theoretically could provide an answer.

However, that seems to be , pretty much, demolished as an option in this post. www.bautforum.com... by Joema. Simply put, Joema calculated that, as a spy satellite it would be, virtually useless as its' field of view would be so small, as to render it pointless.

[edit on 19-4-2010 by FireMoon]

Does anyone know how long it would take for a signal to travel from the are of space it is believed to have originated?

Originally posted by Visual_Death
Does anyone know how long it would take for a signal to travel from the are of space it is believed to have originated?

I'm not sure. They said it's in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation:

www.rasnz.org.nz...

As that shows the distance of objects in that constellation range from less than 2200 light years to 60,000 light years away.

If wow signal was terrestrial in origin, couldn't it have been translated proving it so?

heh you say that as if its easy....

I propose a task for you....I'll encode some meaningful data in a format that I wont disclose, I also wont disclose what the data represents, it could be text, sound, image, video etc etc. To really throw you off the scent, I may, or may not encrypt it after with as many levels as I see fit.

Then, you get to de-code it and tell me what that data is...

Im terrestrial afterall.

[edit on 23-4-2010 by fuserleer]

I personally think we have a better chance of detecting ET through other means than through SETI, but that's a whole different thread.

Agreed. SETI assumes other species happen to use precisely our technology, which is patently ridiculous. why, exactly, should we assume that another intelligent civilization not only utilizes electromagnetic radiation for communication but that it is careless enough to just pump it into space?

my favorite webcomic (XKCD) tackles this rather well

Ive always thought that about SETI too...in the end I put it down to human ego!

I've never been of the opinion that it was a good idea to wave a flag, yelling "Omg.. here we are!" That's quite trusting of us, but could bite us hard later.

One opinion of the Wow! signal is ship-to-ship communication in space. Would be a reason they only got the one signal.

The so-called "Wow!" signal has always fascinated me. According to the references linked to in Wikipedia (I caution against taking Wikipedia at face value without reading the references personally,) a terrestrial reflection origin has been more or less ruled out. Furthermore, the signal was at a frequency extremely near to that of the hydrogen line. While I agree that its lack of repetition renders it potentially dubious, we should probably keep in mind the possibility of a signal sent specifically on a one-time basis (as others have stated, this has happened with our own SETI program before). We have no reason to assume that any hypothetical entities sending the signal know we're here at all, and it's entirely possible that our reception of it was entirely due to chance.

Then there's the issue of no further electromagnetic signals originating from the same direction. If they use technology capable of transmitting a detectable electromagnetic signal, why haven't we detected any trace of their less specific electromagnetic radiation? I have to keep an open mind to the possibility that the signal originated from some sort of traveling probe or other moving object that we might not detect additional signals from, rather than from a planet itself.

And of course, it's always possible that an entirely natural phenomenon is responsible for the signal. We have no way of knowing.

The saddest and most frustrating part is that we'll never know in our lifetimes, as even if it originated from a planet orbiting one of the stars in Chi Sagittarii, the nearest would take 220 years to detect any signal from us, and an additional 220 years to then redirect further signals at our region of their "sky."

a reply to: darkbluesky
well today its now 40 years later and the signal
is still a mystery it seems. I would have hoped that in the 40 yrears since this was first heard we would have possibly heard something else, but we really have only begun to look, and in a very limited area too. I am ever the optimist that we will hear /and/or find e.t. life very soon. They are visiting, so hopefully soon we will be able to find out where, maybe some, are coming from.

Time shift. A random human signal reflected back in time from some unknown point and though some unknown mechanism. Time is a fluid thing, not always traveling in the same direction.

well some forms of space travel postulated would have a similar signature. specifically something like an alcubierre drive might release a bunch of radio x ray or gamma rays as a burst. the burst would not necessarily be repeated. though if the location is frequently used to initiate a warp journey similar burst would occur sporadically and in slightly different locations at irregular intervals.

one way to look for extra terrestrials would be to look for signatures of advanced propulsion systems. such bursts not associated with normal sources of x rays, radio waves or gamma rays. E.G; not around pulsars, white dwarfs, black holes, novae and so forth. magnitude probably smaller than such natural sources that occur in the same general but not exact location at irregular times.