Social network site Bebo has partnered up with RDF Digital, to allow its community to create a ground-breaking digital time capsule that will be beamed 120 trillion miles into space. Launched on 1 August 2008, A Message From Earth lets young people make their mark on history with personal messages and pictures that will be broadcast to the nearest planet that could hold life.

A Message From Earth lets the public contribute to a galactic time capsule created democratically via the internet for the very first time. More than 12 million users of Bebo can create their own messages and vie for a spot in the final 500 that will be decided via a web vote which runs until 30 September.

A Message From Earth is one of the most advanced third party applications to be integrated within a social network environment, and users are able to use the application canvas to submit images, text, or draw pictures, which are all translated into a binary format which can be broadcast into deep space via high powered radio waves.

The chosen messages will be broadcast on 9 October by the National Space Agency of Ukraine’s giant RT-70 radar telescope.

The messages will travel at light speed, and will pass the moon in just 1.7 seconds and will leave our own solar system within seven hours, before heading on to Gliese 581C, the target planet 20.5 light years away. The message will reach its target during spring 2029.

A Message From Earth Animation from Oli Madgett on Vimeo.

To ensure its technical viability, the project was developed 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 Russian Academy of Science.

The project is backed by RDF Media Group, the company behind hit TV shows such as Shipwrecked, Location Location Location, and Wife Swap. RDF Television, one of the production companies in the Group, is currently developing a TV format around the concept.

A Message From Earth will be ad funded, and commercial partners are being sought for integration across all aspects of the project. Zad Rogers, Creative Director of RDF Digital sees social networks as the natural launch pad for such multi-platform formats. “We were originally looking at the feasibility of developing a stand-alone site, but it makes total commercial sense for us to partner exclusively with Bebo to give us critical mass in terms of the audience from launch, and in an online environment where the idea should spread virally like wildfire.”