Oct 2025
There was panic in the room of the Orion Artemis II Optical communication system Ground Segment, California. It was 11.30 at night and there were ten people in that shift. Two were just running around, as they were interns, and they were repeatedly asked to run errands.
“Where did this signal come from?” Bob asked, puzzled.
“Check with the ISS (International Space Station)” Sarah said, coming over to his workstation, as he pointed it out on his system.
“I did, but they didn’t send it,” Bob replied.
“Did you see that? Who sent that?” Ranjit called out from his station.
“Not sure yet, Ranjit,” Sarah replied.
“Maybe the aliens have finally contacted us,” jokes Illeana
“Please find the coordinates soon, will you?” Sarah said, engrossed in the monitor, dismissing Illeana’s humor.
“Sure,” replied the dejected Illeana. Truth be said, she was not entirely joking. She always believed, one day someone would contact us from outer space.
Sarah got a ping on her system. It was from the Orion Artemis II Optical communication system (O2O) Space Segment, finalized in 2024 and running successfully around Earth’s orbit. It has started sending signals to ground segment O2O in California already. It kept everyone in the ground segment on their toes.
Sarah sprang up on her feet and stared at her system. She got a call from Arthur from the Space segment. She picked it up urgently, saying, “Arthur, speak.”
Arthur was stumbling on his words, “Sarah, did you get it?”
“I did, Arthur. What the hell is this?” Sarah asked.
“Sarah, I am not sure, but we here are trying to decipher it. It seems like a puzzle. Who would have sent it? “
“Not sure, Arthur. I should inform Susie right now.”
“Yes, you do that and keep me in the loop, ya.”
“Yes, sure.”
She runs to the Chief Scientist, Susie’s, office. Susie was in the middle of the call when Sarah came barging in, panting, hands on her knees.
“Sarah, I am on call. What is this?” She was clearly annoyed by Sarah’s behavior.
“Sorry Susie, but this is urgent.” panting
The annoyance turned to concern, as it was unlike Sarah, so she said on call, “David, please let me call you back. Something urgent has come up. “Ya sure.. Bye”
“What is it, Sarah?” Susie asked curiously.
“We have got a signal, a possible message, but it was not sent by the space segment. None of the other stations reported any such message. “
“What is the message?” asked Susie urgently.
“We do not know that yet, Susie. It is not yet deciphered. “
Susie stood up, took her phone with her, and rushed towards Sarah, saying, “Come on, let’s go and find out.”
They ran back to the system.
Bob had by now decrypted the cypher to a binary code.
“Good work, Bob,” Susie said.
She was already on call with the Director, David, at this point. “David, Hi, Yes, sorry to disturb you again. So we have something new. It is a laser signal and, surprisingly, it was not sent by the space segment.”
“Yes David, we are on it. We’ll keep you in the loop” and disconnected the call.
“Sarah, what is the binary code?”
“It is 100110000110010000000000000000000 “
What does it mean? “
“It would be 5,113,380,864”
Everyone looked at each other, if someone had a clue about what the number indicated.
“Think people think, what does this number mean?”
“The hydrogen line microwaves are produced by an atomic transition of an electron between two hyperfine levels of the hydrogen 1 s ground state with an energy difference of 5.8743261841116(81) eV [9.411708152678(13) 1025 J].””It is called the spin-flip transition,” Illeana said.
Everyone looked around at once. After a moment of silence, Sarah said, “Great!” “That’s good, Illeana,” she says sounding proud.
Now, why are we getting a message about the hydrogen transition? Moreover, where did it come from? “Asked Susie. Her phone was ringing continuously.
She picked up a call after a while. “Oh! Are you coming over? Yes, definitely David. This is huge. We have decrypted it to a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. Sure, I will let the board know. “
“Ok people, great work. Sarah said, “Please make a report and mail it to the station head and Illeana try and find out the meaning of this,” and she left in a hurry.
“Sure, Susie,” said Illeana excitedly.
There was commotion constantly on the ground segment that day. Everyone is running around with reports, going through records and mostly on calls.
After some hours, David and Susie came in together.
David got to the point, “Great work team. So did someone find out what this message means?”
“Not yet, David,” Sarah replied.
“Where is Illeana?” asked Susie.
Everyone looked around “She was here a while ago.”
After a moment, Illeana came rushing in, “Sarah, Sarah.”
“We are here, Illeana. Tell us what you found.” This time it was David.
She looked at him and all the other eyes were on her. She fumbled a bit, put herself together, and said, “Voyager 1.”
“What about Voyager 1?” asked Susie.
“The message sent on the golden record of Voyager 1. Among the other messages to play the record was, binary code defining proper speed (3.6 sec/rotation) to turn the record. The time period associated with the fun…”
David completed the “…fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom.”
“Wow!” “That means someone or something has listened to the record,” Bob said.
“Yes, the record contains all the voices on Earth. Technically, Voyager’s mission is achieved. If we are not wrong, there is life somewhere outside of the Heliopause. “
“Or maybe somewhere much farther, just happened to pass by our space probe,” said Sarah
“Yes, possible,” said David, staring at the message on the system for a long time.
“This is a revelation and we need to be prepared. Wait for further instructions.
“This can either be a good thing or we just invited terror to our doors.”
