'A small step for man, a giant leap for advertising'

The project, in which the public are invited to shoot a 30 second advert, underlines the current crisis in funding astronomy, due to an £80 million shortfall.

For broadcasting the advert into space, encoded as ones and zeros that clever aliens should be able to figure out, Doritos will make an undisclosed donation to astronomers and academics from Leicester University and Eiscat (The European Incoherent SCATter Scientific Association).

The space-bound ad will broadcast from a 500MHz Ultra High Frequency Radar from the EISCAT Space Centre in Svalbard, Norway, used to study the atmosphere and northern lights, which has escaped a savage round of cuts because its five year renewal contract has been signed.

Prof Tony van Eyken, Director of Eiscat, admits he does not know what the effects of the UK cuts will be but says he is happy to accept any novel source of funding: "Broadcasting an advert extra terrestrially is a big and exciting step for everyone on Earth as up until now we have only tended to listening for incoming transmissions."

When Nasa recently beamed a Beatles song towards the North Star, 431 light years from Earth, some experts warned that the signals could expose us to the risk of attack from mean spirited aliens.

~ from UK astronomers to broadcast adverts to aliens ~