After weeks of teasers, waiting, and procrastinating, I’ve finally finished the third episode of the sixth season (S1E3). As I said before, this episode is dedicated to what remains (even after 50 years) the strongest candidate for an extraterrestrial communication. This episode was special for me because, in addition to the signal’s historical significance, I got to recount a personal story.
In 2016, when I was a relative newbie at Universe Today, I had the honor of covering some stories related to the Wow! Signal. For a few years, a professor had been claiming that the famous signal was caused by comets that were puffing out clouds of energized hydrogen. This happens when comets approach the Sun: their ice begins to sublimate, releasing clouds of water that are broken down into hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Shortly after he wrote his follow-up paper in 2017, a radio astronomer contacted us and said the whole claim was bunk. We published their thoughts on the matter, and you know what? She was proven totally right! With that one exchange, we went from being just another publication unwittingly promoting hype to writers who were in on the ground floor of a snowballing debate.
Check out the links for the audio and video versions of the episode. The latter requires a subscription to view:
Stories by Williams 