New Analysis Finds 1977 ‘Wow!’ Signal Four Times Stronger, Narrows Source

Scientists have produced the most detailed re-evaluation yet of the 1977 “Wow!” radio burst, digitising more than 75,000 pages of Big Ear telescope logs and subjecting them to modern signal-processing techniques. The team, led by Abel Méndez at the University of Puerto Rico’s Planetary Habitability Laboratory, calculates the 72-second signal’s peak intensity at roughly 250 Janskys—about four times earlier estimates—and refines its frequency to 1420.726 MHz, still within the hydrogen line commonly targeted in searches for extraterrestrial technosignatures. By tracing the telescope’s pointing history, the study narrows the transmission’s origin to two compact regions of sky and shows that any source must have been moving at about 74 km s⁻¹. Statistical tests rule out radio-frequency interference, satellite passes and lunar reflections, leaving a natural astrophysical outburst—possibly a magnetar-induced hydrogen maser flare—as the leading explanation, though an artificial beacon cannot yet be excluded. The findings, posted to arXiv and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, are intended to guide targeted follow-up observations before the Wow! signal’s 50th anniversary in 2027. The renewed scrutiny comes amid broader interest in potential technosignatures. Separate observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS with the James Webb Space Telescope reveal an unusually carbon-dioxide-rich coma, while Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has controversially suggested the Manhattan-sized object could be artificial. Both developments underscore growing efforts to distinguish exotic natural phenomena from possible evidence of extraterrestrial technology.