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Submission + - Has the 40-year old mystery of the "Wow!" signal been solved? (newatlas.com)

schwit1 writes: Astronomers have confirmed that the Wow! signal, thought to be the most promising detection by SETI of alien life, was actually caused by a comet.

Last year, a group of researchers from the Center of Planetary Science proposed a new hypothesis that argued a comet might be the culprit. The frequency could be caused by the hydrogen cloud they carry, and the fact that they move accounts for why it seemingly disappeared. Two comets, named 266/P Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs), happened to be transiting through that region of space when the Wow! signal was detected, but they weren’t discovered until after 2006.

To test the hypothesis, the team made 200 radio spectrum observations between November 2016 and February 2017. Sure enough, 266/P Christensen was found to emit radio waves at a frequency of 1,420 MHz, and to double check, the researchers moved their radio telescope by one degree. As expected, the signal vanished, and only returned when the telescope was trained back on the comet.


Comment abstract text (Score 4, Funny) 124

This is the abstract used ( not really) to get teh funding grant for this research.

Two fundamentally different but complementary transition metal catalyzed chemo-, regio-,diastereo-, enantio-, and grantproposalo-selective approaches to the synthesis of a library of biologically significant nano- and pico-molecules will be presented with the focus on reaction mechanism and egocentric effects. The role of the nature of the metal, ligand, solvent, temperature, time, microwave, nanowave, picowave, ultrasound, hypersound, moon phase, and weather in this catalytic, sustainable, cost-effective, and eco-friendly technology will be discussed in detail.
Crime

Submission + - Smart Phone Gets Driver Out of a Speeding Ticket 1

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Sahas Katta writes in Skattertech that a traffic cop pulled him over while driving home and gave him a speeding ticket but thanks to his Android, he ended up walking out of traffic court without having to pay a fine or adding a single point to his record. "I fortunately happened to have Google Tracks running when an officer cited me for speeding while heading back home from a friend’s place," writes Katta. "The speed limit in the area was a mere 25 miles per hour and the cop’s radar gun shockingly clocked me driving over 40 miles per hour." Once in court Katta asked the officer the last time he attended radar gun training, when the device was last calibrated, or the unit’s model number — none of which the officer could answer. "I then presented my time stamped GPS data with details about my average moving speed and maximum speed during my short drive home. Both numbers were well within the posted speed limits," says Katta. "The judge took a moment and declared that I was not guilty, but he had an unusual statement that followed. To avoid any misinterpretations about his ruling, he chose to clarify his decision by citing the lack of evidence on the officer’s part. He mentioned that he was not familiar enough with GPS technology to make a decision based on my evidence, but I can’t help but imagine that it was an important factor.""

Comment Re:The More Young College Grads I Meet... (Score 1) 671

Business is business, Why should I care about the company "paying my dues" if, when the times get a little tough they lay off employees to increase the share price. Their responce, business is business. My responce, I'll put in 40 hours of hard work a week, but I want an equitable work contract. My first job out of university was 70 hours a week, for six months, then they laid everyone on the project off. I was not upset with the company, any other american company would have done the same. I then ( six years agao) emigrated to an "evil socialist" european county and have been loving my job and life every since.

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