Sun Nov 17 23:18:54 UTC 2024: ## Father-Daughter Duo Crack ‘Alien’ Message from Mars
**Washington, DC** – A US father-daughter team has successfully decoded a cryptic message transmitted from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a European Space Agency spacecraft orbiting Mars. Ken Chaffin and his daughter, participating in the A Sign in Space citizen science project, spent nearly a year deciphering the signal, which was beamed to Earth in May 2023 and received by three observatories.
The message, described as “alien-like,” consists of fleeting visual configurations of white pixels on a black background. These patterns represent five amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of life. The signal, which travelled 16 minutes from Mars to Earth, flashed its amino acid arrangements for only a tenth of a second.
While the project organizers confirmed the amino acid representation, the meaning behind the specific sequence remains a mystery. The Chaffins, leveraging decades of experience in cellular automata (Ken) and countless hours of experimentation and computer simulations, cracked the code. They collaborated with other citizen scientists via a global Discord server to extract the raw data from the Mars spacecraft signal. The duo are now working with the wider community to unlock the deeper meaning behind the decoded message. The ESA is encouraging further analysis and interpretation of this unique interstellar communication.
First Piper 