In 1977, we received a signal from deep space that lasted 72 seconds.
In August 1977, astronomers detected an unusual radio signal coming from deep space that’s been the subject of debate ever since. Known as the Wow! signal, it was heard only once and never again. It still hasn’t been adequately explained. Enter amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero. He’s a founder of The Exoplanets Channel on YouTube and coordinator of the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project, which, earlier this year, announced GJ 3470 c, the first exoplanet candidate fully discovered by amateur astronomers. On November 8, 2020, the non-peer-reviewed, open-access repository of electronic preprints arXiv published a scientific paper by Caballero. In it, he said he has narrowed down the source of the Wow! signal. He might even have identified the specific star of origin. It’s a sunlike star – labeled 2MASS 19281982-2640123 – 1,800 light-years away, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy.