At 7pm, Eastern, NASA beamed the Beatles, Across the Universe at Polaris (the North Star).
It'll take 431 years to reach the star. Some people think it may be a waste of money, but this is the Beatles, damnit. About the only thing better would be to beam Mozart or Beethoven, maybe Copland (hey, we're Americans, and it's our money).
To give you a general idea just how friggin' big space is, at a little over 4 hours out, the signal is just now passing Neptune.
5 comments:
Jeez, don't check in for a day and you're all 'splodey over here. I usually take a quick look first before deciding what I'm reading in depth.
I stopped short because I read it "NASA blamed Beatles..."
Serious WTF moment.
You know, after four hundred years, that song will not even be on the oldies stations.
Maybe we should have sent an episode of "I Love Lucy".
That would have kept them guessing.
Nathan, sorry about that. I had a lot of "I'm too tired to go to sleep" energy last night. Something about not eating dinner until 9:45pm, I'm sure. And NASA's still kinda ticked over that whole "Lucy in the Sky" thing. :)
Anon, already done. Well, more as a general broadcast, "I Love Lucy" (and most TV signals) are propagating out into space. Although this signals would be pretty dispersed by the time they reached another star and would probably appear as background radiation blips. But really, we should beam "Green Acres" to the stars. That'll keep them away.
WTF? I would have thought they would certainly have gone with Zydeco... A little Clifton Chenier? Boozoo Chavis? The Zydeco Cha Chas? Come on!
:-)
Matt, well sure, we all love us some Zydeco, but then you need to explain washboards and wurlitzers. I don't think aliens could wrap their minds around it.
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