I know there's more important things to shout from the rooftops, but one is also reminded not to panic on days like today. Depending how it is measured, today is the 30th anniversary of the Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy (h2g2).
Douglas Adams helped create a very British version of Life in Space adding much to everyones' knowledge of all things intergalactic with gargleblasters, paranoid androids and, of course, the very important number 42.
I have the Guide installed on my phone, for moments when I need smile.
An example entry poses that whilst Earth generates lots of noisy radio signals now, they could all suddenly stop as a result of moving to lower powered satellite reflected digital signals. This relatively sudden cessation will alert our near neighbours of our planet and its changing conditions.
So will the Futurama prophesy come true? We'd see space folk from Omicron Persei 8 arrive demanding to see the final episode of Single Female Lawyer (Ally McBeal) no longer viewable at a long distance since digital cutover?
It will still take a long time to find out.
If Gliese 581c is one of our neighbouring galaxies nearest "earth like" planets, it is still around 20 light years or 120 trillion (trillian?) miles so right now if they watched earth telly they would be watching the Berlin Wall coming down. It'll be another 8 years before the first episode of Ally McBeal even reaches them.
And pity the poor folk on 47 Ursa Majoris. Not only has it been sent two customised Cosmic Call 2 messages to decode, but they were also broadcast the first interstellar advertisement from a radar array at the EISCAT European space station.
Advertising what? Why Doritos tortilla chips, of course.
