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See the original image at news.wired.com

NASA sends Beatles "Across the Universe" to the star Polaris

news.wired.com — This first-ever beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space is nostalgia-driven. It celebrates the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th anniversary of NASA's Deep Space Network

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  • Kev585, on 02/02/2008, -1/+14"Across the Universe" is my favorite Beatles song I hope an alien race that will appreciate it intercepts the radio signal.
    • seanmc303, on 02/02/2008, -1/+6I just hope it is not interpreted as a declaration of war!
    • skywake, on 02/02/2008, -1/+2"Words are flowing out like
      endless rain into a paper cup
      They slither while they pass
      They slip away across the universe
      Pools of sorrow waves of joy
      are drifting thorough my open mind
      Possessing and caressing me "
    • fyngyrz, on 02/02/2008, -3/+1This is very interesting. I wonder if the other nations of the world consented to intentionally expose the fact that we live here to parties unknown with agendas unknown. I thought that was why we hadn't yet sent any messages. It certainly isn't a technical problem, hasn't been for decades now.
      • STKD, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Voyager probes. Look them up.
        • fyngyrz, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1I know about voyager. It isn't going to reach another solar system for an unbelievably long time -- tens of thousands of millennia -- and really doesn't factor into a conversation about a radio signal that will hit its target in four centuries.
      • Marmot, on 02/02/2008, -0/+3Also, the Arecibo message, sent on Nov 16. 1974.

        Also, all of our regular day-to-day radio / television broadcasting...
        • insllvn, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2Single Female Lawyer
          fighting for her clients
          wearing sexy mini-skirts
          and being self reliant
        • fyngyrz, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Huh. Didn't know about the Arecibo message, thanks. Still, 25,000 lights years seems... conservative... compared to Polaris.

          The radio and television stuff isn't likely to be heard anywhere; the only thing we do with sufficient ERP is OTH radar.
    • deadmann, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2I think he only liked Asians
    • sabach, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3I once heard John say it was his favorite Beatles song too and possibly the best song he had ever been involved in writing.
    • unreg, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1Which version, the one that Phil Spector butchered with his heavy handed "Walls of Sound" technique or the unadulterated one that's found on the Get Back bootlegs and "Naked"

      Cause I wouldn't want to give the aliens the wrong impression.
    • donkeySays, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1Mine too. I keep listening to it over and over and over and over and over again -- it never gets repetitive or boring. Rufus Wainwright did a good cover. Fiona Apple's cover's interesting too. Let the song flow across the Universe.
  • elitistmusician, on 02/02/2008, -12/+7If only every copy of the movie "Across the Universe" was sent to Polaris...
    • NeoSporin, on 02/02/2008, -7/+2The mere fact that you saw that movie tells me you're not ready.
  • googooly, on 02/02/2008, -15/+1already been posted and on the front page with 40 diggs. Nice
  • palehorse864, on 02/02/2008, -1/+2Then they'll send the music from the band Polaris to Polaris.
  • mok000, on 02/02/2008, -0/+77Hmm, file sharing with the aliens? I wonder what the RIAA has to say about this...
    • bannus, on 02/02/2008, -3/+8we know what digg has to say about this...

      ***** THE RIAA
    • mcdett, on 02/02/2008, -0/+15No.... seriously. It is not fair that aliens will be able to sample the Beatles art without properly compensating the artist. Do you know how much the artist has now lost? We all know that the aliens would have purchased at least five Beatles albums each, but now they will not buy any Beatles albums (because they stoled it). In fact by transmitting any music into space you automatically reduce the artist next year payments by 25% (reduced alien cd sales). If we keep sending Beatles music into space Paul McCartney will be living on the street before we know it... poor poor Sir McCartney!
    • directrix13, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2I predict an interstellar subpoena streaming to the North Star sometime soon.
      • insllvn, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2That would be an awkward first contact...
    • rootneg2, on 02/03/2008, -0/+3don't worry, it's DRM'd
  • tonich03, on 02/02/2008, -0/+5There is a huge NASA antena in Madrid? That's where I live and I've never heard anything about it.
  • VanaRoth, on 02/02/2008, -3/+4Wonder if NASA paid royalties to use the song...lol!
  • Phernoree, on 02/02/2008, -0/+25The RIAA will sue the aliens in 431 years
  • NeoSporin, on 02/02/2008, -0/+40They better send it in 320kpbs, nothing makes aliens more angry than a low quality rip.
    • unreg, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Better be Ogg, otherwise we might have a royalty situation.
      • Philbert, on 02/02/2008, -0/+3But could they figure out how to play it?
        • insllvn, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Well, gah, they are like totally super intelligent! *Amy's voice*

          Dunno why that popped into my head but, there it is.
  • browny1978, on 02/02/2008, -0/+24On tuesday, thepiratebay.org beams it website to Polaris to show how to download more beatles songs
    • Phernoree, on 02/02/2008, -0/+8only by the time it reaches Polaris, it'll be the year 2439 and noone will be seeding.
      • unreg, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2***** leeches
      • Jeffler, on 02/02/2008, -2/+1SEED COMMENT PLZ!!!11
      • insllvn, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Beatles songs are timeless, and the PirateBay will be around for a while too I suspect.
  • baalzebub, on 02/02/2008, -1/+7http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp3hHH37rzI
  • Dysarthria, on 02/02/2008, -12/+7Wow, this is totally lame.
    • MacParrot, on 02/02/2008, -3/+6Then you and your useless comment will have much in common with it
  • Phernoree, on 02/02/2008, -2/+6I think we should send Jodie Foster into space instead.
  • Antibland, on 02/02/2008, -8/+6Aliens return message: "Your drumming humanoid 'Ringo' is overrated, earthlings. Pipe us some Neil Peart next time."
  • tastypaste, on 02/02/2008, -0/+26Sadly, the song shared a striking resemblance to the alien's own ceremonial song for declaring war. Humanity was annihilated shortly after.
  • STKD, on 02/02/2008, -6/+3"NASA sends Beatles "Across the Universe" to the star Polaris"
    Oh how I wish that were true.
  • Sinai, on 02/02/2008, -3/+4If they had really thought this through, they would either send something centuries old that has stood the test of time, or something completely current which will BE centuries old by the time the signal actually reaches Polaris.
    • MacParrot, on 02/02/2008, -2/+5Yes, send the entire Brittany Spears collection. Why should we be the only ones to suffer?
      • dogstar0125, on 02/04/2008, -0/+3Britney Spears is current? I thought she was history.
    • dogstar0125, on 02/04/2008, -0/+4Yes, something from Das Wohltemperierte Clavier would represent humanity in a much more positive light.
  • robphillips, on 02/02/2008, -1/+5Wait, why do aliens get free music? Was it DRM encrypted?!
  • charliespopcan, on 02/02/2008, -2/+4BEATLEMANIA, now millions and millions of light years away across the universe

    The Beatles, ftw!
  • bubba9999, on 02/02/2008, -0/+10Maybe they could send my ex to deliver it personally.
  • styleomatic, on 02/02/2008, -9/+3And how much did this cost the American taxpayer? A waste of time and money.
    • dartmanx, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1I faxed them over a wad of electricity to use to send the signal.
      • styleomatic, on 02/03/2008, -0/+3cool... next time fax nasa some common sense.
    • OneLess, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Considering that the entire NASA budget, divided evenly amongst the US population, amounts to $50 a year per person? Probably less than 1% of 1 cent.
      • styleomatic, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2thats STILL too much money.... : )
  • dartmanx, on 02/02/2008, -8/+5And I for one welcome our new alien overlords.
  • daxsymbiont, on 02/02/2008, -6/+3the beatles wear leather and tried to look bad-ass before their beginning.

    their manager put them on the 'nice guys' clothes.

    look it up.
  • smokestack, on 02/02/2008, -3/+1that's right, we should make it MP3 so they have to sort out how to decode what turns out to be a silly song compressed into our narrow hearing range.. instead of ,say, uncompressed unencoded important information.. NASA gets sillier every day.. perhaps they're gradually trying to convince what public they still have the support of that they truly are wasting our money.
  • S2000, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4In related news, following the broadcast, the RIAA launched a rocket containing a legal prosecution team to track down the recipient file-sharers.
    • DeFex, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1they should make a really big rocket and send all the lawyers and other "important" people there.
  • MarsSentinel, on 02/02/2008, -4/+3The FIona Apple version is far superior and the aliens will surely annihilate us for our poor taste. Moosic: Ur Doin It Rong!
  • DeFex, on 02/02/2008, -2/+7I'm glad that aliens know how to decode mp3s.
    if ever there was a need for rolleyes it is now.
    Because thats just about them most retarded things i ever heard.
    • rootneg2, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1no kidding.

      I'm all for sending music to ET (although I would gone with some Beethoven, or maybe a jazz piece), but wtf are they thinking sending it in mp3 format? First of all, it's lossy; if you're sending digital music to aliens, at least make it something lossless like flac or acc. But more importantly, they won't have any idea how to decode it, we might as well have sent them static.
      If you're going to send music off to the stars, it seems to me like the best bet would be regular old AM radio, although perhaps in a different place in the spectrum.

      Also, it's pretty silly unless you loop the transmission. The signal will be pretty faint, they would need to have a telescope directed at that particular spot of the sky at that precise time, after that the signal just washes over them, gone forever. We can only cover so much of the sky at any one time with our radio telescopes; if aliens are sending this sort of more-or-less random, one-shot "pulse" messages like this, chances are that we've already missed one. If we want *them* to hear *us* we have to think about was we want to hear from them. We wouldn't want to hunt for a single 5 minute sound-bite of thier culture encoded in a system entirely unintended for our decoding; we would want something very simple, like a continuous repetition of the first few primes; something like that would be much harder to miss.
  • timbo458, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1I wonder how many engineers it took to come up with this ground breaking idea?
  • danlyons, on 02/02/2008, -0/+0Hey, it's the human interest stories that keep the funding.
  • banido, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1They should have sent Babylon Zoo - Space man.
    I´m just saying...
  • QuickeningYak, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1What? Was [classical composer name] not good enough?

    /sarcasm
  • Slvrgun, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1Microbes can't listen to music.
  • mateo60, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1They should send "And Justice for All" so that they know that we don't ***** around.
    ; )
  • byrdgang, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2What are the chances the aliens will know how to decode a format we (humans) created? Even if the aliens are far more intelligent than we are, their intelligence could have nothing to do with technology, and specifically MP3s.
  • TheOneTrueGod, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1Imagine we would be there in 431 years. Then, one day, marked on the calender, we would all tune in and listen to this song from the past - and would realize how far we've really come.
    • immersofloctan, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Why you are being dugg down is a mystery to me. Even if things are highly unlikely to happen that way, that's a beautiful thought, man.
  • tsurabisu, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2Wow thats an awesome idea. Huge Beatles fan here. Props to NASA for doing this and to the parties allowing this song to be used. Across the Universe is such a beautiful song, Maybe in about 862 years well all hear a song back.
  • protogenxl, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1They should have sent "Hey Sandy"
  • dansvan, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Now when the aliens visit us they'll be wondering where The Beatles went...
  • scotus, on 02/02/2008, -0/+3hrmmm, is beaming a song into space a reproduction or a public performance? Sounds like the RIAA may need to sue NASA now!
  • mparker7410, on 02/02/2008, -1/+4Almost buried because of this...

    "The song, written by McCartney and John Lennon, may have a ticket to ride and will be flying at the speed of light. But it will take 431 years along a long and winding road to reach its final destination."

    Eyes roll.
  • 4eloBek, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2I would send aliens some Cannibal Corpse or some other ***** just for laugh
  • inkhead, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1All across the Universe.. The RIAA is now suing, any alien vessel in the area be advised to turn off the radio. If you hear the song, then you too helped steal it.
  • gregux, on 02/02/2008, -0/+0Nice song, and a classy way to introduce ourselves. Unless, of course, the aliens are Stones fans. In that case, we're *****.
  • Evicted, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Well apparently sound broadcasts degrade after about 1 or 2 light years so lets hope "the aliens" enjoy loud static. This will probably cement our position as most irritating new upstart planet with delusions of grandeur with the intergalactic masses.
  • 3li0, on 02/02/2008, -0/+0That just rocks!!!
  • iamthearm, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Stupid pun titles just like the news. Can't stand it myself.
  • PaulOwen, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Note, this song contains the repeating lyric:

    "Nothing's gonna change my world,"

    If I were a hostile alien, I'd see that as a taunt.
  • Yupp, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1"Send more Chuck Berry"

    /some of you may remember this
  • chrisinstudio, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Its nice to see are tax dollars promoting the band that already has the most free publicity ever. Not to mention the fact there music has been sent billions of times over various airwaves into space already. I love the Beatles but I'm not sure I would want them acting as ambassadors to the universe. Better them than Brittney Spears I guess. I guess I'm on the fence with this one.
    • styleomatic, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1i get nothing but a sore ass being "on the fence." i think this is nasa's public relations saying "look how cool we are." a waste of time and money... over and out.

      p.s. i gave you a thumbs up : )
  • perseon, on 02/03/2008, -1/+2Ahh, so that's where the R&D dollars are going.
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