HISTORY OF WOW!!! SIGNAL FROM SPACE
Just in case any aliens out there in the universe are listening, more than 10,000 Twitter messages, plus videos from celebrities such as comedian Stephen Colbert, have been beamed into space as a big "Hello!" from Earth.
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| CODING OF WOW SIGNAL OCCURS AT 1977 |
The messages are
intended as a response to what's called the
Wow! signal, an intriguing radio signal detected on Aug. 15, 1977 that some
thought was a call from extraterrestrials. The 72-second transmission was
picked up by the Big Ear radio observatory at Ohio State University, coming
from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
Because the radio signal
was 30 times more powerful than the average radiation from deep space, a
volunteer astronomer named Jerry Ehman who was watching the telescope data
scrawled "Wow!" on a computer printout, leading to the signal's
moniker. No evidence ever arrived actually linking the transmission to an alien
civilization, and no repeat message from the same direction has ever been
detected, and the Wow! Signal remains a mystery.
Now, exactly 39 years later, whoever sent the emission may be
getting a response.
A project directed by
the National Geographic Channel and Arecibo Observatory beamed a package of
digital information out to the heavens on Wednesday (Aug. 15) containing
Twitter messages from the public, submitted via the hashtag #ChasingUFOs, as
well as videos from celebrities such as Stephen Colbert, Jorge Garcia, and
Leila Lopes, the 2011 Miss Universe.
"Greetings,
intelligent alien life forms. I am Stephen
Colbert and I come to you
with an important message on behalf of all the peoples of the Earth," the
comedian says in his video. "We are not delicious. In fact, we're kind of
gamey, and we get stuck in your teeth. It's really embarrassing at a job
interview. If you want something good to munch on, go to the nearby Crab
nebula. And bring a bib. Seriously, all you can eat.
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