New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
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Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#2"How a team of astronomers embezzled crowd funders into buying them a new telescope by making them believe they will look for a 'Wow' signal explanation"
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#3Seems unlikely. If undiscovered comets were this prone to putting off such strong signals, there should be a lot more unexplained "wow!" notations in notebooks from them.
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#4"How a team of astronomers embezzled crowd funders into buying them a new telescope by making them believe they will look for a 'Wow' signal explanation"
That's so nastily uncharitable.
I understand the fun in painting what people are doing in the blackest possible colors. It's a parlor game and gives a buzz to both the writer and reader. But in doing so, you smear black paint all over the parlor. We're trying to make HN a better place to be than that, so please don't play that game here.
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#5"How a team of astronomers embezzled crowd funders into buying them a new telescope by making them believe they will look for a 'Wow' signal explanation"
Hey, as long as they buy a new telescope and do their best to make the measurements they're proposing then there's nothing shifty going on here as far as I can make out. Obviously nobody has to give anyone any money. (I am always a little extra skeptical of GoFundMe funds for specific projects though since the funds are transferred even if the goal is not met.)
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#6> Comet 266P/Christensen will pass the Chi Sagittarii star group again on 25 January 2017, while 335P/Gibbs will make its passage on 7 January 2018. Paris plans to observe these events to look for a recurrence of the mystery signal. But time is not on his side for using an existing radio telescope – they are all booked out.
Can someone explain why he needs to observe them when they're passing in front of those particular stars?
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#7Seems unlikely. If undiscovered comets were this prone to putting off such strong signals, there should be a lot more unexplained "wow!" notations in notebooks from them.
I do not think it matters how unlikely it is. As long as it is possible and there is no surefire culprit the theory needs to be tested, if only to rule it out.
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#8Seems unlikely. If undiscovered comets were this prone to putting off such strong signals, there should be a lot more unexplained "wow!" notations in notebooks from them.
I do not think it matters how unlikely it is. As long as it is possible and there is no surefire culprit the theory needs to be tested, if only to rule it out.
"Probable" and "unlikely" are antonyms. It can't be unlikely and probable.
edit: The level of likeliness should affect the amount of effort put into testing the hypothesis. I'd like an explanation from them on why they think the Wow! signal is so rare if a comet is the explanation - NASA says there might be as many as a hundred billion comets in the solar system, so "where's the rest of their signals" is a legit criticism.
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#9"How a team of astronomers embezzled crowd funders into buying them a new telescope by making them believe they will look for a 'Wow' signal explanation"
That's so nastily uncharitable. I understand the fun in painting what people are doing in the blackest possible colors. It's a parlor game and gives a buzz to both the writer and reader. But in doing so, you smear black paint all over the parlor. We're trying to make HN a better place to be than that, so please don't play that game here.
Thanks, dang. It was once true that a surefire way to rack up a large amount of karma in HN was to make a nasty, uncharitable statement like that. I've experienced the weird ridiculous thrill of it myself, on another account, along with the deflating realization that I'm being rewarded (such as it is, karma having no actual value) for participating in the destruction of civilized discourse. I appreciate you actively stepping in and articulating the argument against such "parlor games" and the drive to make HN different in that way, even though I've seen that it doesn't always win you fans in the community.
Re: New effort to study astronomical ‘wow’ signal after almost 40 years
#10> Comet 266P/Christensen will pass the Chi Sagittarii star group again on 25 January 2017, while 335P/Gibbs will make its passage on 7 January 2018. Paris plans to observe these events to look for a recurrence of the mystery signal. But time is not on his side for using an existing radio telescope – they are all booked out. Can someone explain why he needs to observe them when they're passing in front of those partic…
I think the point is to reproduce as much of the original conditions as possible and check for a similar signature. The paper itself, does not explain the need for exact conditions: http://planetary-science.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Pari...