Radio telescopes on Earth will beam 90,000 messages to Mars on Friday to commemorate the launch 50 years ago of the first robotic probe to visit the planet.
A U.S. space funding company called Uwingu organized the extraterrestrial shout-out to mark the 50th anniversary of NASA's Mariner 4 mission and to raise funds for its other projects.
Uwingu's "Beam Me To Mars" initiative invited interested participants to send digital radio-wave transmissions of their names, messages and pictures to Mars for fees ranging from $5 to $99.