American astronomer Antonio Paris announced his intention to uncover the secret of one of the most plausible alien signals in the history of astronomy, observing the comet that potentially gave birth to it in 1977.
For all 56 years of work, SETI astronomers have not been able to find unambiguous traces of extraterrestrial civilizations with one small and controversial exception. This role is claimed by the so-called "Wow! Signal" caught by the Big Ear radio telescope in 1977.
In subsequent years, astronomers were unable to re-find the source of this signal in the constellation Sagittarius, which led scientists to consider it a reflection of radio waves from Earth from pieces of space debris.
Antonio Paris of St. Petersburg College, USA, who was at the time in the US Department of Defense, believes he has a clue to the mystery behind the signal.
According to him, at the moment when the SETI astronomers recorded the "Wow signal!", in 2006 and 2008.
Comets, as the scientist explains, contain huge amounts of water, which, in turn, consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Ionized hydrogen emits radio waves at the same frequencies that were caught by Big Ear in 1977.
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Initially, scientists believed that such a coincidence was explainable from the point of view of the existence of aliens - since hydrogen is extremely common in the Universe, it is quite possible that aliens can use an "impossible" signal based on the same frequencies to indicate their existence.
In 2017, comet 266P / Christensen will once again fly through the constellation Sagittarius and pass by the star Chi Sagittarius, next to which the "Wow! Signal" was recorded.
According to the astronomer, he will check if the given "alien" burst was generated by a comet, using his own radio telescope, which he will build with money raised through crowdsourcing. If Paris's suspicions are confirmed, then the riddle of the only alien signal in the history of SETI will be finally solved.
