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The planet is the nearest to Earth that could potentially be inhabited by intelligent life. Bebo is inviting its users to write messages or draw pictures to inform and entertain our potential alien neighbours.

Users can create messages by adding the "message from Earth" application, and vote for which ones they would like to see launched into space. The messages will travel 120 trillion miles to Gliese 581. According to experts, it'll be 40 years before we could potentially receive a response.

"The planet that we're interested in - we haven't actually seen yet," said Doug Millard, curator for space technology at the Science Museum in London. "What's really exciting is that it appearts to be on the same scale as our own planet; Planet Earth."

The project was created by Oli Madgett, who used to work for "Big Brother" and "I'm a Celebrity" and will be taken into orbit this October with the help of the Evpatoria Deep Space Communication Centre in Ukraine.