No, this is work of one person published in an obscure journal, not A&A, or ApJ, or MNRAS, for example. BBC Horizon covered his idea recently. That's not to say it isn't right, just that the solution is still not agreed upon. Fast radio bursts only recently discovered, indicate how much we still don't know because there's just so much sky to cover, at so many frequencies.
A friend of mine mentioned the paper referenced in the article as as being super sketchy, and another astronomer said that it appeared to be a story constructed entirely of red flags. I'll summarize as best I can:<p>* The journal the author claims it was published in (the Washington Academy of Sciences) doesn't seem to a reputation to speak of, or even have anything to do with radio astronomy <a href="http://www.washacadsci.org/journal/" rel="nofollow">http://www.washacadsci.org/journal/</a>. Additionally, they haven't updated their catalog since 2013, so there's no way to even tell if it was published.<p>* The author has been accused of exaggerating his credentials before. He is an adjunct professor teaching two introductory courses at St. Petersburg College. He got a position as the Manager of Planetarium and Space Science Studies at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa, FL, which he announced on his website as "[Museum of Science and Industry] MOSI Selects Prof. Antonio Paris to Lead Space Program" (<a href="http://planetary-science.org/mosi-selects-prof-antonio-paris-to-lead-space-program/" rel="nofollow">http://planetary-science.org/mosi-selects-prof-antonio-paris...</a>). Additionally, his other credentials are suspect too. He claims to be the principal investigator at the site-B 10-meter radio telescope in central Florida. The "site-B 10-meter radio telescope" is his truck-mounted telescope.<p>> He also describes himself as an astronaut candidate with Project Possum, a four day suborbital flight program, and the director—and apparently also the sole employee—of the Center for Planetary Science, which he also founded. There's been a bit of disagreement as to Paris' education and the accuracy of his work, which Paris vehemently disputes. He claims that he was a former US Army Intelligence officer and as such, much of his life's work is classified. It's not exactly a clear-cut history<p>from <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20128/a-researcher-is-crowdfunding-an-investigation-into-a-possible-alien-signal/" rel="nofollow">http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20128/a-researcher-is...</a><p>* A year when there were stories about him running a Kickstarter to buy a new radio telescope because all the other ones were booked for the year. Others pointed out that this was not true <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/apr/14/alien-wow-signal-could-be-explained-after-almost-40-years#comment-72367743" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016...</a> and super sketchy (read through the other comments too). It appears that he just wanted people to buy him stuff, not for any actual investigatory need.<p>* Everything on this story has been sourced from <a href="http://planetary-science.org/" rel="nofollow">http://planetary-science.org/</a>. planetary-science.org appears to be run by the author and the author alone.<p>* The paper the article covers offers no actual comparison between the magnitude of the signal received and the original Wow! Signal. It only shows the raw signal on his own equipment, so there's no way to determine its magnitude relative to the original. The paper handwaves the question of magnitudes away as the original telescope being more sensitive, or the comet being older now.<p>[edit] <a href="https://xkcd.com/1847/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/1847/</a>
Was "just" solved in a 2016 paper? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Cometary_emissions_as_likely_explanation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Cometary_emissions...</a>
I wonder if this is also a plausible explanation for the RF signals that Nikola Tesla observed earlier on in last century that [he thought] was of ET/alien origin - due to its repetitive nature.
They have an interesting hypothesis. It would be a lot stronger, IMO, if the second horn had picked up the signal as well. Still, I am happy to see this kind of thought going in to the problem!
This article is terrible and not fact-checked. The Chinese just built a telescope bigger than Arecibo[1], and the 140 foot telescope in West Virginia used to be used for SETI before it was essentially retired... in 2001.<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hundred_meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hundred_meter_Aperture_Sp...</a>
> The Wow! Signal was detected at 1420MHz, which is the radio frequency hydrogen naturally emits.<p>What does mean? Hydrogen (and presumably other gasses) just spontaneously emit EMR at some specific frequency?
This is a very interesting idea but I am suspicious of the source, and additional corroboration. Perhaps this will spur others to look into it and could turn out to be right. Such is science..