On May 24, 2023, as part of the A Sign in Space project, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) will transmit an encoded message to Earth to simulate receiving a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization.
Artist’s impression depicting the separation of the Schiaparelli module from the Trace Gas Orbiter, and heading for Mars. Image credit: D. Ducros / ESA.
“Throughout history, humanity has searched for meaning in powerful and transformative phenomena,” said Daniela de Paulis, the visionary artist behind the A Sign in Space project and artist in residence at the SETI Institute and the Green Bank Observatory.
“Receiving a message from an extraterrestrial civilization would be a profoundly transformational experience for all humankind.”
“A Sign in Space offers the unprecedented opportunity to tangibly rehearse and prepare for this scenario through global collaboration, fostering an open-ended search for meaning across all cultures and disciplines.”
Three world-class radio astronomy observatories — the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA), the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) at the Green Bank Observatory, and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station observatory — will detect the encoded message.
The specific content of the encoded message, developed by de Paulis and colleagues, is currently undisclosed, allowing the public to contribute to decoding and interpreting the content.
TGO will transmit the encoded message on May 24 at 19:00 UTC (12:00 pm PDT), with receipt on Earth 16 minutes later.
“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,” said Allen Telescope Array project scientist Dr. Wael Farah.
“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.”
Following the transmission, ATA, GBT, and Medicina teams will process the signal and then make it available to the public for decoding.
The SETI Institute will securely store the processed data in collaboration with Breakthrough Listen Open Data Archive and Filecoin, the world’s largest decentralized storage network.
This collaborative effort ensures the preservation and accessibility of the processed data, safeguarding its availability for further analysis and decoding endeavors.
“We’re thrilled to partner with SETI on this groundbreaking project,” said Stefaan Verveat, head of network growth at Protocol Labs, the company behind Filecoin.
“Our decentralized data storage solutions are ideally suited for the secure and reliable storage of the vast amounts of data generated by this project.”
Anyone working to decode and interpret the message can discuss the process in the A Sign in Space Discord server.
Submissions of findings, thoughts, and artistic and scientific inputs may be made through the dedicated submission form on the project’s website.
Following the transmission, the A Sign in Space team will host a series of Zoom-based discussions open to the public around topics that consider the societal implications of detecting a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization. The discussions will take place over 6-8 weeks after the transmission.
