Leicester (UK) - If you had the chance to send a message into space, what would it be? People in the UK have an opportunity to get their Doritos-sponsored message sent to 47 Ursae Majoris, which is believed to be supporting living organisms - 42 light years away from Earth.
The space commercial is part of Doritos' "You Make It, We Play It" user-generated-content campaign in the UK. People are being asked to be creative and shoot a 30 second video ad about what they perceive life on earth to be.
Travelling at the speed of light, of course, it will take the commercial 42 years to reach its target area. The ad signal, which is separated into several portions that are encoded in '1's and '0's each, is estimated to pass the Sun after 4:30 minutes and to leave our solar system after in just under nine minutes. The transmission signal will be boosted with about 2000 million watts of power and could travel for "hundreds of light years," the researchers said.
Another form of space advertising, called "moonvertising" is set to see another try this month. Latrobe Brewing company from St. Louis says it will put a logo for its "Rolling Rock" beer on the moon, using a green laser. There are some doubts whether current technology would allow the Rolling Rock logo actually appear on the moon and there are certainly concerns how such a high-powered light beam would interfere with air traffic. We will find out on March 21, when the logo is planned to be displayed on the moon.
