The Wow! Signal Sorted? Not So Fast!

After we published an article about the famousWow ! signal belike being emitted by a comet , we were contacted by researchers from the Ohio State University Radio Observatory ( responsible for for the real detection of the signal ) , who flatly reject the determination . They provided ample grounds that the comet claim is not as valid as we were led to believe . Actually , far from it .

The recent paper was peer - brush up and put out in theJournal of the Washington Academy of Sciences . It   claims that Comet 266 / P Christensen is likely the source of the Wow ! signal observed almost 40 year ago .

Lead author Antonio Paris states in the newspaper : “ On the same engagement and clip , Comet 266P / Christensen was transit in the neighbourhood where the “ Wow ! ” sign was detected . ” But as the astronomers at Ohio State University   compass point out , this " neighbourhood " is very much a relative condition for Paris .

The location of Comet 266 / P the night of the detection was almost 15 degrees away from the situation of the Wow ! signal . This means that if you were stare at the   location in the sky , it would take almost an hour from detecting the comet   to finally picture   the Wow ! signal .

Paris also note another possible culprit comet P/2008 Y2 ( Gibbs ) that   he plans to observe next twelvemonth . This object was also   nowhere near the source of the signal .

Another issue pointed out in therebuttalwas that the author did n’t put up any spectral comparability between the Wow ! signal and the alleged emission from the comet . The signal was of a very specific material body and it would be warm grounds if what Paris envision of the comet was indeed standardised .

The scientists also level out that   the expelling from the source needs to be highly varying . The ray of the Big Ear , which find the signal , was large enough to have the source in its domain of prospect for several minutes . The researcher contacted several expert   and each   were unaware of any discharge from   comet like the one described by Paris .

If all this was n’t sufficient , the observatory had two side - by - side radio beams scanning the sky . If the source was a comet , it should have shown up in both of them . It did not .

We contacted theJournal of the Washington Academy of Sciencesand   ask   if any of these issues were bring up during the peer - review process , but at the time of writing , we have not received a reply .