Last updated September 3, 2019 at 11:48 am
Astronomers have encoded the sound of a Lexus V8 and beamed it into space, for reasons?
The engine sounds of the V8 Lexus RC F were broadcast into space by Swinburne astronomers, for reasons? Credit: Lexus Australia
In the world of marketing stunts, the sky is the limit. But apparently that wasn’t enough for Lexus, who have partnered with astronomers from Swinburne University to broadcast engine sounds into the cosmos.
Yes it’s ridiculous and nuts, but if you had access to a massive telescope, you probably would too.
The Centre for Astronomy and Supercomputing encoded the noise from a V8 RC F sports coupe into an audio waveform, that was then transmitted into space as part of what Lexus are calling the ‘Intergalactic Test Drive’.
via GIPHY
Hoping to reach revhead aliens, the message was beamed into space from the largest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (UTMOST) – located on the outskirts of Canberra.
The full message saying: “New Lexus RC F. Earth. We’ve been expecting you,” was created by Swinburne’s Matthew Bailes and his astrophysics team using the on-campus supercomputer, OzStar.
“We had to find a solution that was both technically feasible, adhered to radio transmission regulations and didn’t blow up our telescope.”
It might be a shameless plug and tie-in for Lexus and the upcoming Men in Black film (the message was broadcast to Orion’s Belt, after all), but sometimes it’s worth doing stuff just for the hell of it.
We’ll find out if anyone was listening in a few thousand years.
via GIPHY
