Now disassembled Big Ear telescope was looking for messages in the electromagnetic frequency range of 1420.4056 megahertz, which is generated by a hydrogen element. The signal was incredibly strong, but very short and lasted only 1 minute and 12 seconds, according to a report written by its discoverer, astronomer Jerry Eyman.Īfter seeing the printout of the abnormal signal, Ehman highlighted it and even wrote the exclamation “Wow!” on the page, which became the name of this event. The signal was picked up by the Big Ear telescope of Ohio State University, which recently joined the SETI program. All because, according to scientists, life, as we know it, can most likely be formed in planetary systems with sun-like stars. However, a tiny hope for the artificial origin of the extraterrestrial message remains. The famous signal could come from the constellation Sagittarius from the star 2MASS 19281982-2640123

Its temperature, diameter and luminosity are almost identical to our Sun,” Caballero said. I found one particular sun-like star – this is an object designated as 2MASS 19281982-2640123, located about 1800 light-years away from us.

“The Wow! signal most likely came from some natural phenomenon, not from aliens. However, do not think about the artificial origin of a distant radio message. The Wow signal! came from the object 2MASS 19281982-2640123Īstronomer Alberto Caballero said that the signal could come from a sun-like star located at a distance of 1800 light-years in the constellation Sagittarius. Now, perhaps, the exact source of the alleged broadcast of “aliens”, discovered almost half a century ago, has been determined. Researchers have expressed different ideas about the origin of this message: from intelligent beings to a passing comet. Known to this day as the “mysterious Wow! signal”, it was caught by a radio telescope on the night of August 15, 1977. It seems the Ukrainians either got lucky, or timed their reconnaissance and bombing run to coincide with a period of time when the Pole-21 was off, and incapable of defending itself from the very GPS-guided munitions it’s designed to thwart.The Wow! signal is considered the best candidate radio signal for the SETI project to search for extraterrestrial civilizations. often suppresses not only the enemy’s equipment, but also its own, leading these systems to sometimes being switched off,” CIT explained. So a Pole-21 crew has to be judicious with how it uses its jammer-switching it on only when there are no Russian forces in the vicinity that need satellite guidance. “High risk of co-channel interference for all spectrum clients/users within the operational footprint of this jammer,” the U.S. The main problem with the Pole-21 is that it jams everything: enemy and friendly signals alike. To be fair, however, a JDAM still works without its GPS, although less accurately. That they could complete their raid and destroy the Pole-21 strongly implies the Pole-21 wasn’t working at the time of the attack. Note that both of the Ukrainian systems involved in the strikes-the drone and the bomb-rely on GPS.

After a drone identified the Pole-21’s unique antennae arrangement, a Ukrainian air force fighter-a Sukhoi Su-27 or Mikoyan MiG-29-reportedly lobbed a JDAM at the system. The Ukrainian operation to eliminate the Pole-21 apparently began with drone reconnaissance by the Ukrainian intelligence service’s White Wolf group. In the 21 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces have destroyed at least four dozen Russian jamming systems, each of which might cost tens of millions of dollars. The more the Ukrainians rely on GPS, the more the Russians try to jam GPS-and the more the Ukrainians target the jammers. This and other adaptations “suggest that Russian forces are applying lessons learned from operations in southern Ukraine to other sectors of the front,” ISW noted.

A radio signal from space in 1977