35 years ago yesterday....for nerds

So one of my hobbies is Astronomy.  I have SETI - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence as my screensaver.   It is a research program out of UC Berkeley.   What it does is evaluate radio telescope data from outer space when my screensaver comes up.  Its actually pretty cool looking plus I feel like I helping a good cause.  Here's the website: 

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

So yesterday was the 35th Anniversay of the Wow! Signal.  

Late one night in the summer of 1977, a large radio telescope outside Delaware, Ohio intercepted a radio signal that seemed for a brief time like it might change the course of human history. The telescope was searching the sky on behalf of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the signal, though it lasted only seventy-two seconds, fit the profile of a message beamed from another world. Despite its potential import, several days went by before Jerry Ehman, a project scientist for SETI, noticed the data. He was flipping through the computer printouts generated by the telescope when he noticed a string of letters within a long sequence of low numbers---ones, twos, threes and fours. The low numbers represent background noise, the low hum of an ordinary signal. As the telescope swept across the sky, it momentarily landed on something quite extraordinary, causing the signal to surge and the computer to shift from numbers to letters and then keep climbing all the way up to "U," which represented a signal thirty times higher than the background noise level. Seeing the consecutive letters, the mark of something strange or even alien, Ehman circled them in red ink and wrote "Wow!" thus christening the most famous and tantalizing signal of SETI's short history:

                                                      The "Wow!" signal

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Hey that is neat stuff. I wonder if there is app for that on iphones. I will join you in the nerds club lol.

That's really interesting - thanks for that LooneySyl. Interesting website too.

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Ooooh an app would be cool.

Thanks for the info LooneySyl!

Update!!      8'|

On Wednesday, August 15, 2012 the anniversary of the Wow! Signal, the National Geographic Channel and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto RIco joined forces to send a reply.  The collaboration between National Geographic Channel and Arecibo Observatory is part of a bold social experiment: a long-overdue response from earthlings to the mysterious senders behind the Wow! Signal, an unexplained 72-second transmission from space detected by SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) 35 years ago.

For the response, Arecibo scientists have “gone the extra mile” to increase the chances of intelligent life receiving and decoding the celebrity videos and crowd sourced tweets. In particular, each message will have a repeating-sequence header attached that will let the recipient know that the messages are intentional and from another intelligent life form. Additionally, the transmitter used yields a signal roughly 20 times stronger than that of the most powerful commercial radio transmitter.  Arecibo has selected Hipparcos 34511, Hipparcos 33277, and Hipparcos 43587 as the transmission targets, the latter of which is known to include a planetary system.

The WOW! Reply program was launched in conjunction with National Geographic Channel’s new series, “Chasing UFOs,” a documentary-style program investigating the mysteries and debunking the myths about aliens and intelligent life on other planets.

More info about the WOW! Signal Reply:

www.ufodigest.com/article/wow-reply-transmission-complete-arecibo-observatory

www.thewowreply.com

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thanks for the share 8'|

All I have to say is WoW  . Amusing. Wonder what'll happen if there is a reply to "our" (earthlings) reply.

I used to also participate in the SETI project.  Thanks for reminding me-I think I'll start again!