Approximate location of the Wow! Signal in the constellation of Sagittarius

2MASS 19281982-2640123 is a Sun-like star located in the area of Sagittarius constellation where the Wow! Signal is most widely believed to have originated.^[1][2] The star was identified in a 2022 paper as the most similar to the Sun out of the three solar analogs found inside the sky region.^[3][4] Located 1,800 light years away, it was estimated to be only 130 light years away from Claudio Maccone's estimation where a communicative civilization is most likely to exist.^[5]

The star has a right ascension of 19h 28m 19.8s, a declination of -26° 40' 12.59", an estimated temperature of 5,783 Kelvin, a radius of 0.99 solar radii, and a luminosity 1.0007 times that of the Sun.^[6] The team used the Gaia Archive to identify another dozen of candidates to be Sun-like stars, but the estimations on their luminosity were unknown.^[7]

Breakthrough listen search

As a response to the discovery, on May 21, 2022 Breakthrough Listen conducted the first targeted search for the Wow! Signal to find its source.^[8] It also was its first collaboration between the Green Bank Telescope and the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) of the SETI Institute.^[9]

Greenbank performed two 30-minute observations, the ATA did six 5-minute observations with its new beam-former backend, and both observatories observed a total of 9 minutes and 40 seconds at the same time.^[10] The team used the turboSETI pipeline from 1–2 GHz to search for an artificial narrowband signal (2.79 Hz/1.91 Hz) with a drifting of ±4 Hz s−1.^[11] No technosignature candidates were reportedly found.^[12]

References