A Bell Labs engineer hunting radio static accidentally found the Milky Way's own hiss

In 1932, Karl Jansky was tracking down static plaguing transatlantic radio calls when he found a hiss that shifted slowly across the sky every day. It turned out to be radio waves coming from the center of the Milky Way — the first signal ever detected from beyond the solar system. His accidental discovery founded the entire field of radio astronomy.

— Karl Jansky, Karl Guthe Jansky — Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1932