Overview

• Arecibo Wow! researchers reprocessed original Big Ear records and estimate the signal’s peak flux at about 250 Janskys, roughly quadruple many prior calculations.
• The team recalculates the frequency to 1420.726 MHz, a higher value that implies a larger Doppler shift than previously assumed.
• The likely sky position is narrowed to a compact region in Sagittarius with roughly two-thirds greater localization confidence than before.
• Known terrestrial explanations are reported as ruled out, including TV transmitters, satellites, and moon-bounce, reinforcing an astronomical origin.
• A compact cold hydrogen cloud producing a brief maser-like flare, possibly triggered by a magnetar, is proposed as a plausible mechanism, with the arXiv studies submitted to The Astrophysical Journal after digitizing over 75,000 pages of archival data.