Determine the exact sky location of the Wow! signal source

Determine the exact sky position and corresponding small cold neutral hydrogen (HI) cloud region responsible for the 21-cm emission observed by the Ohio State University Big Ear radio telescope at 1420.4556 MHz on August 15, 1977, including whether the source lay within the first (West) or second (East) horn transit path and its precise coordinates within those beams.

Background

The 1977 Wow! signal was detected by the Ohio State University Big Ear radio telescope in one of its two feed horns, with no detection in the subsequent horn three minutes later. The authors analyze HI column densities and VLA source counts within the Wow! field and argue the second horn is more plausible, but they acknowledge that a precise identification remains unresolved.

Figure analyses and discussion suggest the source region could be a small cold HI cloud with angular size comparable to the Big Ear’s azimuth beam (~8 arcminutes). The authors propose that archival and new targeted observations could identify the specific HI cloud responsible, but the exact location is not yet determined.