In love? Post message in space for ETs on Feb 14

Star-struck lovers seeking a Valentine’s day thrill can beam their message into outer space and help offset the cost of a scientific pr...

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Star-struck lovers seeking a Valentine’s day thrill can beam their message into outer space and help offset the cost of a scientific project, a Russian space official said.

‘‘For 15 or 20 dollars, suitors can declare their love to the person of their choice on February 14 and share the message with extra-terrestrial civilisations,’’ Alexander Zaitsev, head of the Cosmic Call Project, said.

‘‘By taking their love messages at the end of the message we are sending by radio-telescope, they can help us finance part of this project,’’ he said.

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The Cosmic Call Project, in which Russia, Ukraine and the US are taking part jointly, involves transmitting information about the Earth, its environment and its inhabitants, to stars similar to the sun located around 70 light-years away, Zaitsev said.

The coded message will be beamed from the Ukrainian Space Centre at Evpatoria, on the Crimean peninsula.

It is similar to a message sent by Canadian physicists Yvan Dutilet Stephane Dumas from the centre’s 70-metre antenna in 1999.

The first radio-transmission into outer space designed to contact other civilisations — if any exist — was made from the Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico in 1974.