> A team of astronomers think they might have [a better explanation](https://phl.upr.edu/wow), according to [a preprint](https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08513) posted to the physics arXiv: clouds of atomic hydrogen that essentially act like a naturally occurring galactic [maser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser), emitting a beam of intense microwave radiation when zapped by a flare from a passing magnetar.
>
AKA really complex set of circumstances lead to a natural radio transmission.
Personally, this sounds like a Men in Black explanation…
PrinceEntrapto on
This has been posted multiple times already and has been succinctly addressed by numerous qualified commenters; the proposal is a pre-print of a paper that has not yet been subjected to peer-review, and while the proposed explanation suggests it may be possible for strongly narrowband radio signals to occur in nature via excitation of hydrogen clouds, it fails to explain how exactly a signal matching all the parameters of Wow! could occur naturally through these processes
I’m expecting this one will likely go the same direction of the double-comet hypothesis
2 Comments
TLDR:
> A team of astronomers think they might have [a better explanation](https://phl.upr.edu/wow), according to [a preprint](https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08513) posted to the physics arXiv: clouds of atomic hydrogen that essentially act like a naturally occurring galactic [maser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser), emitting a beam of intense microwave radiation when zapped by a flare from a passing magnetar.
>
AKA really complex set of circumstances lead to a natural radio transmission.
Personally, this sounds like a Men in Black explanation…
This has been posted multiple times already and has been succinctly addressed by numerous qualified commenters; the proposal is a pre-print of a paper that has not yet been subjected to peer-review, and while the proposed explanation suggests it may be possible for strongly narrowband radio signals to occur in nature via excitation of hydrogen clouds, it fails to explain how exactly a signal matching all the parameters of Wow! could occur naturally through these processes
I’m expecting this one will likely go the same direction of the double-comet hypothesis