Global Team Simulates First Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence

A team of international experts, including SETI researchers, space scientists, and artists, have come together to stage a project called A Sign in Space, which aims to explore the process of decoding and interpreting an extraterrestrial message by engaging the worldwide SETI community, professionals from different fields, and the broader public. As part of the project, on May 24, 2023, the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) in orbit around Mars will transmit an encoded message to Earth to simulate receiving a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence. Three world-class radio astronomy observatories located across the globe will detect the encoded message, and the specific content of the encoded message is currently undisclosed, allowing the public to contribute to decoding and interpreting the content.