Washington: A campaign has been launched in the UK that would broadcast the first ever advertisement into space, which might be watched by any alien life form in the Universe.
As part of Doritos ‘You Make It, We Play It’ user-generated-content campaign, it is asking the British public to shoot a 30-second ad about what they perceive life on earth to be.
The winning advert in the competition will be beamed past the earth's atmosphere, beyond our solar system and into the Universe, to anyone 'out there' that may be watching.
According to Dr Darren Wright of the University of Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy said, “The ad to be transmitted will be created by the public following a national competition thus increasing public awareness of space activities.”
On 12th June, the space-bound ad will be broadcast from a 500 MHz Ultra High Frequency Radar from the EISCAT Space Centre in Svalbard, which lies in the Arctic Ocean about midway between northern Norway and the North Pole.
The transmission is being directed at a solar system just 42 light years away from Earth with planets that orbit its star '47 Ursae Majoris' (UMa).
47 UMa is located in the Great Bear Constellation. It is very similar to our Sun and is believed to host a habitable zone that could potentially harbour small terrestrial planets and support life.
The advert will travel at the speed of light and continue for an indefinite period.
Within 1.2 seconds, the transmission will pass our moon, after 4.5 minutes it will pass Mars, in under 9 minutes the signal will whiz past the Sun and five and a half hours later it will travel past Pluto and out of our solar system.
The effective power of the transmitted signal to the Universe will be around two thousand million watts, ensuring the advert could be received and watched hundreds of light years from Earth.
The advert will be coded in '1's and '0's (as used for most computer communications) represented by phase changes of the transmitted signal.
The message will be broken into sections and each of the pulses will be numbered so that any intelligent life on recipient planets can mathematically reassemble them.
According to Professor Tony van Eyken, Director of EISCAT, "Broadcasting an advert extra-terrestrially is a big and exciting step for everyone on Earth as up until now we only tend to listen for incoming transmissions.”
“With the transmission technology and planning we are employing, there is a much greater chance that the Doritos advert will potentially be seen by any alien life form,” he added.
The winning ad will also be broadcast on terrestrial TV.
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