Earth to receive 'alien message' from Mars today

Experiment is intended to shed light on how humanity would prepare if extra-terrestrial life one day contacts Earth

An image of Mars captured by the UAE's Hope probe. Photo: MBRSC / UAE Space Agency

Researchers at a global research institute will be receiving an "alien message" from Mars on Wednesday.

The message is part of an experiment by the Seti Institute that will help human beings prepare for a possible future attempt at contact by extra-terrestrial life.

Trace Gas Orbiter, a European spacecraft orbiting Mars, will send an encoded message to experts at the institute, which they hope the public will be able to decode.

“Throughout history, humanity has searched for meaning in powerful and transformative phenomena," said Daniela de Paulis, the artist behind the "A Sign in Space" project.

“Receiving a message from an extra-terrestrial civilisation 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 radio astronomy observatories on Earth will detect the encoded message.

These include the Seti Institute’s Allen Telescope Array, the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope at the Green Bank Observatory and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station observatory.

The specific content of the encoded message, developed by Ms de Paulis and her team, has not been disclosed, in the hope that the public can contribute to decoding and interpreting the message.

The orbiter will transmit the encoded message on Wednesday, May 24 at 11pm GST, and Earth will receive it 16 minutes later.

After transmission, researchers will process the signal and make it available to the public for decoding.

Submissions of findings, thoughts and artistic and scientific inputs may be made through the dedicated submission form on the project’s website.

Astronomers all over the world have for decades looked to the stars to find signs of extra-terrestrial life, but none have yet been found.

Many UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings get reported to US authorities.

In July 2022, the US government launched the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force after a spate of observations by military pilots of unknown aerial objects.

The objects exhibited speeds and manoeuvrability that seemingly defied the limits of known technology and the laws of physics.

There is also a team at Nasa dedicated to studying unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), which are also known as unidentified aerial phenomena.

"The limited number of high-quality observations of unidentified anomalous phenomena currently makes it impossible to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events," Nasa said on its website.

"Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform Nasa what possible data could be collected in the future to shed light on UAP."

While no signs of alien intelligent life has yet been discovered, Nasa has sent rovers to Mars to look for signs of ancient life, such as water, which would show that the planet was once habitable.