Search for another lifeform beyond Earth continues, an alien signal has beam to the planet from Mars for the first time. The European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) flash an encoded message to Earth from its orbit around Mars on 24th May 2023 at 9:00 PM to simulate a situation when a real signal from another civilisation is receive by us.
The signal hit Earth 16 minutes later.
Daniela de Paulis, the artist behind the ‘A Sign in Space’ project said :
“Throughout history, humanity has searched for meaning in powerful and transformative phenomena. Receiving a message from an extraterrestrial civilisation would be a profoundly transformational experience for all humankind,”.
Daniela de Paulis, who is an Artist in Residence at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute has brought together a team of international experts, space scientists, and artists to create a project to explore the process of decoding and interpreting an extraterrestrial message.
The signal was beam by the European probe, as part of the project, and was receive by the Green Bank Telescope (West Virginia), the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station (Italy), the Allen Telescope Array (California), and the Very Large Array (New Mexico).
As per project website :
“We’re asking individuals and groups to take part in decoding and interpreting the content of the message. The decoding and interpretation process will determine both the technical and cultural content of the message,”.
It is to be noted that the message has been design and encoded by Daniela de Paulis and her team, and is currently undisclose.
The project has now request people to send in their interpretation of the message.
ATA Project Scientist Dr. Wael Farah said :
“This experiment is an opportunity for the world to learn how the SETI community, in all its diversity, will work together to receive, process, analyze, and understand the meaning of a potential extraterrestrial signal,”.
The details of the message beam from Mars are available here for decoding.
Dr. Wael Farah said :
“More than astronomy, communicating with ET will require a breadth of knowledge. With “A Sign in Space,” we hope to make the initial steps towards bringing a community together to meet this challenge,”.
