A signal was sent from Mars to the Earth in 2023 by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, as a part of the ‘A Sign in Space’ project. Three observatories, the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virgina and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station in Italy picked up this message.
Interestingly, around 5,000 citizens worked together via Discord chat to extract and decode raw data mixed with other signals from the spacecraft.
The extraction and visualization of the data was completed in 10 days, but it took almost a year to decipher the message. The task of decoding was completed by a father-daughter duo, identified as Ken and Keli Chaffin.
How Did Father-Daughter Duo Decode Message?
ESA stated that the father-daughter team relied on their intuition and ran simulations to crack the code. The decoded message turned out to be a visual signal made up of five configurations, each representing an amino acids. The duo believed the white pixels to be some kind of cellular formation. Amino acid is considered the building blocks of life.
Ken Chaffin told CNN, “I had no idea what the message would show or say. I suspected that it might have something to do with life.” He added that he immediately recognized them to be amino acids from school chemistry classes. His daughter, Keli had no intention to join him, but got mesmerised by the vastness of the project.
The signal has been decoded successfully, but its true meaning remains difficult to find. The real challenge ahead lies in interpretation of the message and its significance. This task falls to citizen scientists who will further try to uncover the hidden message within the data.
Scope For Interpretation
Project creators have no immediate plans to verify the interpretations but they have encouraged people to submit their ideas. As per reports, the media artist behind ‘A Sign in Space’, Daniel de Paulis is working on a book to document the journey of project and includes various interpretations that have emerged.
Top astronomers of the World organized this project to run the scenario of a citizen science response in the event of a real interstellar communication.
