On October 9, 1940, John Winston Ono Lennon was born, he would’ve been 69 today. Hard to believe. It’s also hard for me to believe that I learned something very cool today, how it escaped my Beatle/Lennon knowledge is, to be honest, dumbfounding. Here it is:

On Febuary 4th, 2008,  NASA broadcast from their giant antenna a Lennon/McCartney song, aptly titled “Across The Universe”. It was beamed into deepest space, sent to Polaris the North Star. The song is traveling at the speed of light and will take 431 years to reach its destination, 2.5 quadrillion miles away.

It’s comforting to know that when Klaatu eventually arrives he’ll already be a Beatle fan.