NASA to beam Beatles 'Across the Universe'

For the first time in history, NASA will beam a Beatles tune across the intergalactic transom, 431 light years away, to the North Star.

The song? Across the Universe, of course.

The transmission, carried across NASA's international network of antennas called the Deep Space Network, will commemorate the space agency's 50th anniversary on the song's 40th anniversary.

NASA officials say the transmission will be aimed at the North Star, Polaris, and travel 186,000 miles per second. It won't get there for 431 years, or more than 470 years after John Lennon first scrawled the song's lyrics.

"Amazing! Well done, NASA!" Sir Paul McCartney told NASA. "Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul."

Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, was less cheeky.

"I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with  billions of planets across the universe," she told NASA.

Want to join the fun? Monday is international "Across the Universe Day," Beatles fans, space geeks and everyone in between is invited to play the song at the same time NASA officials transmit the song: 7 p.m. EST on Feb. 4.

-- Casey Cora, Times staff writer

Photos courtesy NASA and the Associated Press