Posted on by Evan Gough

The Wow! Signal Deciphered. It Was Hydrogen All Along.

The Arecibo Radio Telescope. Though it's decommissioned now, Arecibo Data may explain 1977's mysterious Wow! Signal. Image Credit: UCF

In 1977, astronomers received a powerful, peculiar radio signal from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Its frequency was the same as neutral hydrogen, and astronomers had speculated that any ETIs attempting to communicate would naturally use this frequency. Now the signal, named the Wow! Signal has become lore in the SETI world.

But what was it?

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Posted on by Evan Gough

This Star is Blasting Out a Concentrated Jet of Material at 500 km/s

A team of astronomers was studying the masers around oddball star MWC 349A when they discovered something unexpected: a previously unseen jet of material launching from the star’s gas disk at impossibly high speeds. Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Weiss (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

MWC 349A is a star about 3,900 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It’s huge, about 38 times as massive as the Sun. It’s actually a binary star and may even be a triple star. It’s an oddball and one of the brightest sources of radio emission in the sky.

One of the star’s unusual features is its natural maser. MWC 349A’s natural maser played a central role in a new discovery: the young star emits a blistering jet of material travelling at 500 km/sec (310 m/sec.) That discovery could help astronomers understand massive stars and their complexity.

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