Picture the scene - you are the captain of interstellar spacecraft, having left your family and friends (who, due to some of the more unfortunate effects of time dilation at high speeds, you will almost certainly never see again) to seek out new life and new civilisations with your intrepid crew. While inside one interesting-looking solar system, you notice what appears to be a spaceship in the distance. Deciding to investigate further, you see that the spaceship has been heavily damaged, perhaps by a collision with another object. Once you reach the ship, you discover an argon - oxygen atmosphere inside, maintained at 1.3 atm pressure, temperature 290 K (~20°C). Inside, there is a single life form, in obvious distress. It appears to be searching the ship for something.
You take this life form aboard your ship (since the conditions there are relatively similar to those of the other ship). Once aboard, the life form grabs a pen and some scrap paper which is lying around, and begins to write, using an ingenious arrangement of its mandibles to use a pen not originally designed for alien use. The alien appears to be growing weaker by the second, however, and it clearly needs something soon, or it will die. This is what it writes:
The alien is now frantically pointing at the dotted rectangle above. What it the alien trying to say?
I've also updated my blog with the same puzzle - if you're reading this but don't have an account, you can also comment on it there (be warned, I can't promise people won't post spoilers there)
