Amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero tracked down the alleged source of the mysterious “Wow!” cosmic radio signal, which was captured by scientists in 1977. In his opinion, the signal could be a message from intelligent beings that inhabit an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star. Caballero presented his findings in a preprint of an article published in the arXiv.org repository.
The researcher proceeded from the assumption that “Wow!” was sent by aliens. It was recorded by the Big Ear Radio telescope and lasted only 72 seconds, but was quite strong and matched the characteristics of the interstellar signal. Astronomer Jerry Eiman then circled the signal code on the printout and signed “Wow!” On the side, which gave the radio signal its name. However, despite the efforts of scientists, it has not yet been possible to trace the source or catch the signal again, which gave rise to the assumption that it was of artificial origin.
Caballero concluded that if the source of “Wow!” indeed there were extraterrestrial intelligent beings, they were supposed to inhabit an exoplanet orbiting a star like the sun. He searched for such stars in the publicly available Gaia database, which would be at the point in the sky where the signal came from. The star 2MASS 19281982-2640123 met the requirements. According to the researcher, this object was the best candidate for the sources of “Wow!”, Although there are also other suitable habitats in the vicinity.