How a father-daughter team cracked an 'alien signal' from Mars
A radio signal beamed from Mars to Earth in 2023, has been decoded by a father-daughter duo in the US. The coded message was sent by European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter probe as part of an art project called "A Sign in Space." The father-daughter duo of Ken and Keli Chaffin ran simulations for hours and days on end to crack the message. Ken's decades of amateur experience with cellular automata also proved critical in this project.
The decoding process of the 'alien signal'
The art project was spearheaded by Daniela de Paulis, the current Artist in Residence at the SETI Institute and Green Bank Observatory. The first step of decoding its message was extracting the simulated alien signal from raw radio signal data, which took just 10 days with the help of some 5,000 citizen scientists.
Decoded message suggests information about cellular formation
The Chaffins found that the decoded signal "contained movement," which made them think it could carry information about cellular formation or life. The decoded message looks like clusters of white pixels on a black background, with five configurations representing amino acids. They are the building blocks of life. The project designers have confirmed amino acids were the intended message but left its interpretation open to all.
The 'alien-like' signal's journey and reception
The 'alien-like' signal was sent from Mars to Earth, journeying through space for 16 minutes. It was then picked up by Northern California's Allen Telescope Array, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station near Bologna in Italy. The citizen scientists involved in the project interacted with each other via a global Discord chat. They collaborated to pull the raw data entangled with other data from the Mars spacecraft.
