From: Kelly Peterborough <kellymcg@attcanada.ca>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 02:18:07 -0500
Fwd Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:43:00 +0000
Subject: Re: Astronomers Close-In On Alien Signal -


Source: BBC News Online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1122000/1122413.stm


Wednesday, 17 January, 2001, 16:51 GMT
Astronomers close-in on alien signal

Is this a signal from aliens?

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse


A detailed look at the point in space from where an intelligent
signal might have come has revealed nothing unusual.

The observations, using the multiple radio dishes of the Very
Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, add to the mystery of what has
been called the "Wow" event.

The Ohio "Big Ear"

In August 1977 radio astronomers in the United States detected
what could have been a signal from intelligent life in space.
But it happened only once.

Now, two astronomers, Robert Grey and Kevin Marvel, have used
the VLA to look at the spot with unprecedented sensitivity. They
saw nothing strange or anything that could explain the signal.

"Wow"

The "Wow" signal as it has become known is often described as
our best candidate for a signal from an alien intelligence in
space.

On 15 August 1977 a burst of radio waves was detected by the now
dismantled "Big Ear" radio telescope of Ohio State University.
The person who spotted it, astronomer Jerry Ehman, was so
surprised that he scribbled "Wow" on the print-out.

The VLA

The event had all the properties that astronomers expected in a
signal from an alien intelligence. It was confined to a narrow
band of frequencies and it was very close to the "hydrogen
line," a natural signpost in the spectrum.

Because the Ohio telescope cannot move it was only possible to
see the signal as it passed across the telescope's field of
view. From the way the signal was detected astronomers were
certain it was coming from a point on the sky.

It only lasted 72 seconds and although astronomers later looked
at that same patch of sky over a hundred times they saw nothing.
The signal, if it was a signal, was a one-off event.

Some researchers have said it was man-made interference but
others point to the signal's characteristics and say it
definitely came from the sky.

So no one knows if it was a natural radio burst or some kind of
signal.

Since 1977 other radio astronomers have looked at that spot on
the sky in the hope of a repeat performance but to no avail.

The latest series of observations, described in the current
issue of the Astrophysical Journal, are more than a hundred
times more sensitive than the original Ohio observations.

Grey and Marvel see two faint radio sources at the position that
"Wow" came from but both are nothing unusual.

So the mystery of the "Wow" signal remains.