Bebo's time capsule to look for extraterrestrial life

London, August 4 : The members of the social networking website Bebo, have been asked to contribute to a digital time capsule that will be sent on a 120 million-mile journey to the most Earth-like planet outside our solar system, in search of extraterrestrial life.

According to a report in the Telegraph, more than 12 million Bebo users can create their own messages to see if theirs will be one of 500 eventually selected for a place in the capsule.

Entrants to "A Message from Earth" can submit photographs, drawings or text and can make their message about any topic they want.

The final 500 will be chosen in a web vote that runs until September 30.

The messages from earth will be broadcast on October 9 by the National Space Agency of Ukraine by its gigantic RT-70 radio telescope.

The messages will travel at light speed, passing the moon in just 1.7 seconds. They will leave our own solar system within seven hours, before heading onto Gliese 581c, a planetary body that us 20.5 light years away.

The message will reach its destination in the spring of 2029.

Gliese 581c has a radius that is 1.5 times the Earth's. Scientists have estimated that its average temperature is between 0 and 40 degrees Centigrade, meaning that water would exist in a liquid state - one of the essential ingredients for life as we know it.

The project was designed in conjunction with Dr Alexander Zaitsev, one of the world's leading authorities on inter stellar radio messaging, based at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of Science.

ANI