Space Jockey Mask a fossil?

I always thought the "suit and helmet" on the 1979 SJ was its fossilized body. Maybe the Engineers tried to emulate that artificially- very wild guess.

The inside of the helmet is very interesting. It almost looks like organic material- almost like cabbage leaves.

my theory is the inside of the mask looking fossilized may just be a coincidence, it could be made of a material that when the mask completely shuts is projects flight path, shows a holographic display of the surroundings and gives the pilot other data. they may be able to mentally interact with the helmet and fly the ship that way

also looks a bit like the inside of the facehuggers egg

Its a element that show us that suit is biological and mechanical.the xenomorph application on the suit is a reality.

It also show us the engineer from derelict lv 426 is the same as this one just was bigger...the movie was made in 1979...promrthrus 2012...so the props are way better the effects aswell...and they didnt want to have cgi engineers...so they had to make them smaller.

I think its a mask....

I thought it was a skeleton when i was young, but when i was older and watched Alien a few times... it looked unlike a Skeleton...

Then looking at photos of the Prop it dawned on my it was not a Skeleton... maybe a Exo-skeleton or suit like the Xenomorph.

Ridley did say it was a Suit and that was the idea and i think we have to accept thats what it is..

The differences could be just a Evolution of the Tech as i covered here before...  when we compare a 1965 Mustang to say a 2005 one etc.

But it could be Re-engineered Tech... too..

Either way the Space Jockey is similar principle just maybe Older... or Newer.... depends if they are going with Ridleys comments about the Event being a few hundred years within the 2000 year ago outbreak...

So is that few hundred years prior or after?

But then either way that cant be used to confirm the Space Jockey/Derelict are older or newer than the Juggernaught.

Might not the residual chemicals left behind from the chestburster, different atmosphere of LV-426 or speed of the planet's rotation have fossilised its body quicker than the Nostromo crew considered, them assessing the fossilisation based on their experience of how long the process generally takes on Earth, not that of another planet's?