by Parsec » Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:01 pm
Thank you for the link Tuugii, I found it most interesting.
These objects should prove to be quite a story when enough data is in. There is another unit that is being installed on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii that may help.
This is the SCUBA-2 unit.
I have been interested in SETI for some time now. In fact I have tried it myself.
I am a amateur radio operator (VE1 RCW) and have for a long time 'listened' to the sky. I have never heard or recorded anything out of the ordinary. Although I have heard lightning storms on Jupiter, dawn chorus, whistlers and such things.
But then amateurs have limited funds and equipment.
This is only a personal opinion but I think the big 'professional' SETI stations should be spending more time on lower frequencies and not so much time on the 'water hole'.
I think perhaps radar frequencies and things in that area would be much better monitored.
The closest thing we have observed to ET up to this point is the 'WOW' signal.
This is not the physic crap and all that stuff. This is actual science. For those that have never heard of this I will give a quick overview.
The Ohio State University at one time use to do SETI on their 'Big Ear' radio telescope. They would record data 24/7 and process it via normal channels at the time.
On the morning of August 15, 1977 when they processed the data the numbers showed a narrow band signal had been recorded and had lasted 72 seconds.
This data looked to be not a terrestrial signal. And narrow band signals are not a natural occurrence.
So, what this was is still to this date unknown.
They went back the next night and many nights after to try and capture the same signal, but it never appeared again.
The reason it is called the WOW signal is it was circled on the readout paper and the word ?WOW? was written on it.
"We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it."
- Timothy Ferris