Aug 12 2009
Hello from Earth: send your message to the stars!
By Kate Hennessy
It’s in what’s called “the habitable zone” and astronomers believe it’s a candidate for life.
A planet called Gliese 581 d. Eight times the size of Earth, 20 light years away and innocently orbiting its host star whilst messages from Earth (and from YOU!) zoom towards it.
Yes, that’s right. If you’re one of those folk who’ve always yearned to communicate with ETs – here’s your chance. Hello from Earth launches this morning, giving you 160 characters to sculpt your own personal communique to a planet where alien life is possible.
Messages will be collected via the Hello from Earth website until 5pm on August 24 as part of National Science Week, then beamed from the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla.
Since Gliese 581 d is 20 light years away, messages will arrive by around 2029. The first message to be transmitted will be from Senator Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.
Senator Carr, who admits he was fascinated with the stars as a child, will say in his message …
“Hello from Australia on the planet we call Earth. These messages express our people’s dreams for the future. We want to share those dreams with you.”
So why Gliese 581 d?
Gliese 581d: a "super earth"
The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) reports that Gliese 581d is eight times the size of earth – known as a ’super earth’. It’s too big to be made solely of rocky material and astronomers speculate it’s an icy planet that has migrated closer to its host star.
Illustration of Gliese 581 star system vs Earth’s solar system. Verdict? Habitable
They’ve surmised Gliese 581d is in the “habitable zone” where liquid water could exist. In fact, the planet may be covered by a large and deep ocean and, as such, it’s “the first serious ‘water world’ candidate”.
Four years of observations “using the most successful low-mass-exoplanet hunter in the world, the HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile” has lead to the new information, reports the ESO.
So what are you waiting for? Remember – you only get one message. What will you say?
www.hellofromearth.net
Hello from Earth awaits
The Hello From Earth site is a National Science Week initiative of COSMOS and has been developed with the support of Questacon, CSIRO, NASA, and the SETI Post-Detection Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics.
please pay us a visit so we are not alone
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