Written in SCIENCE he
As more space is studied, questions are generated that add to conversations that are exposed in the Science fictionone of them is, what would happen if we were contacted by extraterrestrial life? The subject seems not to be serious and with a little tone scientistbut contrary to this there is a Space mission which will try to recreate this assumption to exemplify the situation.
Through the projectA sign in Spacee” driven by the SETI Instituteand with the participation of the European Space Agencythey will use as a base the mission ExoMars T.O.G. (Trace Gas Orbiter) which orbit Mars to send a coded message to the Land may 24th.
“Receive a message from a alien civilization it would be a profoundly transformative experience for all of humanity. A Sign in Space offers the unprecedented opportunity to tangibly rehearse and prepare for this scenario through global collaboration, fostering an open search for meaning across cultures and disciplines,” said Daniela de Paulis, one of the visionary minds behind the A Sign in Space project.
ExoMars will transmit the coded message on May 24 at 19:00 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time); however, the shipment will take 16 minutes to be captured on the planet.
Who will participate in the coding?
Once the message is received, it will be processed by the teams at the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA), the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO) and the observatory of the Radio Astronomical Station Medicina. administered by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF).
Likewise, the SETI Institute will store the data processed in collaboration with Breakthrough Listen Open Data Archive and Filecoin, the largest decentralized storage network in the world.
The sign will be made available to the public for decoding, and anyone working on interpreting the message can review the process on the A Sign in Space Discord server.
The SETI Institute specified that submissions of findings, thoughts, and artistic and scientific contributions can be made through the dedicated submission form at the project website.
for dr. Wael Farah, ATA project scientist, the experiment is an opportunity for the world to learn about the SETI community and its diversity, “More than astronomy, communicating with ET will require a breadth of knowledge. With “A Sign in Space,” we hope to take the first steps in bringing a community together to meet this challenge.”