Social Networking Site Bebo Wants to Contact Aliens
Written by Ian O'Neill
Red dwarf Gliese 581 and the Earth-like planet Bebo is hoping to contact. Credit: AFP
Social networking sites are the backbone of "Web 2.0" and now one of the most popular sites, Bebo (popular with a younger demographic), hopes to reach out to extraterrestrial civilizations. Why? Well, the power of social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook and MySpace is that you can keep in touch with friends, make new friends and electronically hang out with people with similar interests. So Bebo will invite its users, celebrities and politicians to post messages that "consider the planet from a fresh perspective" and raise awareness of environmental pressures on Earth. In this day and age of democratically selecting news on the Internet (much like another Web 2.0 phenomenon, social bookmarking; like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc.), rather than letting mainstream media select "what news is important," Bebo users will vote the top 500 messages to be transmitted to a small red dwarf star, Gliese 581 in the hope of communicating what really matters to Bebo users. Plus they might extend the Bebo network to some new alien friends…
Transmitting messages to outer space is no new thing. Recently we've sent Beatles songs to Polaris and we've transmitted "Space Spam" to Ursa Major. But through the power of social networking, Bebo is sending the best 500 messages to a star with an orbiting planet, a possible candidate where life (or indeed an advanced civilization) may have evolved. The planet called Gliese 581c is classified as a "super-Earth" and it is located approximately 20 light years from us. The main point behind this effort isn't necessarily to contact extraterrestrial civilizations however, it is to raise awareness about the concerns young people have for the environment.
"I understand that in the majority of cases these messages may be naïve, but I also hope that we will receive a creative and fresh look at the subject." – Dr Alexander Zaitsev
To achieve this, Bebo has teamed up with Oli Madgett of RDF Digital, a subsidiary of RDF Media and will be using the expertise of one of the world's experts in interstellar radio communication, Dr Alexander Zaitsev. Once the 500 messages have been selected, they will be sent to Gliese 581c via a Ukrainian radio telescope, normally used to identify and track near-Earth asteroids.
The voting will commence on Bebo from August 4th until September 30th and the 500 messages, acting like a digital time capsule (after all, the message will take 20 years to reach its destination), will be transmitted on October 9th.
The British production company will cover the £20,000 ($40,000) bill for the four and a half hour transmission from the National Space Agency in Ukraine.
Although sending radio transmissions to the outer reaches of space may seem like a long-shot when trying to communicate with extraterrestrials, this alternative approach will help to raise awareness for the concerns that young people have for the future of Earth, let alone an increase for interest space exploration. The intent is certainly a positive step toward giving the adults of tomorrow a voice and an opinion.
Source: Guardian
Filed under: Earth, Space Exploration
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July 31st, 2008 at 6:31 am
I'm always amused at how obviously targeted at Earth all these "extraterrestrial" endeavours really are…
Bebo, which I had never heard of before this, just managed to enhance its visibility within the geekistry. Success!
July 31st, 2008 at 10:04 am
I see that RDF Media aren't affiliated with the Richard Dawkins Foundation … had a bit of a WTF moment there.
Meh – I doubt this of all things will make Generation Meh care about the world around them. And isn't Bebo a regular target for 4chan trolling? I'dn't be surprised if the top message turns out to be TOGTFO.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:56 am
Good luck with that. All you need to do is to invent a warp drive and a sub space com tech.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
COULD WE PLEASE STOP BROADCASTING OUR LOCATION!?!??!?! Why doesn't anyone tell these people that most of the answers to the Fermi Paradox are very very bad for broadcasters.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Sorry for the double post, but any transmission site irresponsible enough to take part in this suicide mission should be bombed off the face of the earth.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Like a lot of these things that involve 'celebrities', quick-fix politcians and FaceBook users this will turn out to be a very quickly passing phase as there won't any obvious results…..NOW!!!! They will soon move on to something else that attracts their short attention span. Ooo look, a wasp. See, a cloud. Wibble, wibble. That will leave the rest of us to concentrate on ideas and discoveries without their, "look at me, look at me. I really am interesting and committed", blatherings distracting us. Bah.
Paul.
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