Across The Universe, and Space

On the February 5th, NASA beams up The Beatles’ song, Across The Universe, into space.
Who’s the audience? Aliens.

Turned out NASA has used Beatles music before in November 2005, when McCartney performed the song “Good Day Sunshine” during a concert transmitted to the International Space Station. “Here Comes the Sun,” “Ticket to Ride” and “A Hard Day’s Night” have also been played in wake-up calls to astronaut crews in orbit. As reported by TIME magazine, 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, which communicates with its distant probes, and the 50th anniversary of NASA. The day before, eventhough not related to the NASA’s project, a movie titled after the same song released its DVD for public.

LONDON (Reuters) – An intergalactic celebration of The Beatles is launched on Monday with the beaming of their peace anthem “Across the Universe” into outer space.

The man behind the idea, which marks the 40th anniversary of the recording of the song in 1968, is an avid Beatles fan who has persuaded U.S. space agency NASA to kick off the party and now hopes to convert alien life forms to The Beatles. “At the moment we are sending up Morse code as a way of contacting aliens,” Martin Lewis told BBC radio. “Maybe we should send them something a little more cheery.”

If all goes according to plan, NASA will transmit the Beatles tune via its deep space network at Midnight British time. At exactly the same time, fans across the world are being asked to play “Across The Universe” in a bid to “create a harmonic convergence” around planet earth and throughout the universe.

According to a statement from NASA, the transmission will be aimed at the North Star, Polaris, which is 431 light years away from earth. The song will travel across the universe at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney, who beamed his first intergalactic concert to the International Space Station in 2005, congratulated NASA and asked them to pass on his regards to anyone else out there. “Amazing! Well done, NASA!” he said in a statement released by the space agency. “Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul.”

Fans can watch the event online via the Web site www.acrosstheuniverseday.com.

Source: Reuters UK

Ironically, on the very same day, The Beatles’ spiritual guru passed away. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to The Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, has died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said Tuesday. He was thought to be 91 years old. “He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that the Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to “natural causes, his age.”. Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindu practice of mind control that Maharishi taught, called transcendental meditation, gradually gained medical respectability. (Source: Associated Press)

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