Fancy an interplanetary chat?
7 August 2008
This week, social networking site Bebo launched a project that gives you the chance to beam messages across the universe. Could your interstellar time capsule be picked up by aliens on our nearest Earth-like planet?
Antenna investigates the science behind the project...
Image: A Message From Earth Ltd
For the first time ever, the public are being given the opportunity to have their pictures and writing sent into space. Messages - in the form of a digital signal - will be beamed from a telescope on Earth to a planet orbiting the star Gliese 581.
You can see the star Gliese 581 in the night sky as part of the constellation of Libra.
Image: ESO
'Messages have been sent into space before, but their content was decided by a few select people,' says Oli Madgett, the brains behind the project.
'A personal message is a chance for people to make their mark and create a slice of history. It just might be the first thing that another world discovers about life on Earth and our generation.'
Oli Madgett, creator of A Message From Earth
Image: A Message From Earth Ltd
The broadcast will be made from this Ukrainian radar telescope.
Image: Bebo
The messages will be converted into a binary code - the same form of data used in computers. The whole broadcast will take just 4.5 hours. But the messages won't reach their destination for another 20 years because Gliese 581 is a mind-boggling 120 trillion miles away! |
So what's so special about the star Gliese 581?
One planet in the Gliese 581 solar system lies in what alien-hunting scientists call the 'habitable zone'. This means it has just the right surface temperature for water to exist in liquid form - a rare, key ingredient for life.
This planet is so close to its star that a year lasts just 13 days!
Image: A Message From Earth Ltd
'"Is there life anywhere else?" is a fundamental question we all ask,' says Alison Boyle, curator of astronomy at the Science Museum. 'Of all the planets we've found around other stars, this is the one that looks as though it might have the right ingredients for life.'
But no one knows whether or not there are any living creatures in the Gliese 581 solar system. And even if there are, will they be able to decode our messages?
Image: Bebo