Messages have been sent to a planet 20 light years from Earth in a recent attempt to contact intelligent alien life.
At least 501 pictures, drawings and text messages have been collected through a competition by the social networking website Bebo, and trasmitted through radio waves by a giant telescope in Ukraine.
The competition asked members to send in messages that they believed extra-terriestrials would like to receive, and resulted in messages which discussed topics ranging from the environment, politics and world peace, to family relationships.
These messages were then translated into binary format and will travel 120 trillion miles into space.
Organisers hope that the messages will reach their target- the planet Gliese 581C, which was chosen because it is believed to have the potential to support life- in early 2029.
Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer from the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Institute in California, said whether aliens who might receive the messages would understand them was beside the point.
“The point might simply be: well, here we are; we’re clever enough to build a radio transmitter,”
“So if anybody’s out there and they find that signal, they at least know that, in the direction of that star system over there, there must be a planet with some pretty clever things on it.”
Organisers believe that any reply to the messages would not reach Earth for 40 years.
