Social networking site Bebo has transmitted 501 photos, drawings and text messages into space using a giant radio-telescope in the Ukraine that is used to track asteroids.
The communications were selected through a contest on the site called A Message From Earth, Bebo users sent in images that they believed would best represent life on Earth.
The messages will travel at light speed, and will pass the moon in just 1.7 seconds and will leave the solar system in seven hours, heading to Gliese 581c, the target planet 20.5 light years away. The messages will reach its destination during the spring of 2029.
A reply to the message from Earth would not be received for 40 years.
The messages have been translated in to a binary format and will travel 120 trillion miles into space sent using high powered radio waves from the National Space Agency of the Ukraine’s RT-70 radar telescope in Evpatoria.
“A Message From Earth presents an opportunity for the digital natives of today, for whom the Internet is both a fact of life and an integral part of their lives, to reconnect with science and the wider universe in a simple, fun and immersive way,” said Mark Charkin, Bebo VP Sales.
A Message from Earth is backed by RDF Media Group, the company behind TV shows such as Shipwrecked, Location Location Location and Wife Swap.
“We were originally looking at the feasibility of developing a stand-alone site, but it makes total commercial sense for us to partner exclusively with Bebo to give us critical mass in terms of the audience from launch,” said Zad Rogers, Creative Director of RDF Digital.
