The site, hellofromearth.net, that was set up to allow people to send messages to a faraway planet outside our solar system has sent 25,000 messages by this week. The planet called Gliese 581 d is the nearest earth-like planet that may have life, according to scientists.

The messages, transmitted at about midday on Friday from the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Communication Complex outside Canberra, were received from more than 190 countries.

However, a response to the inter-galactic communication will take four decades even if the messages are received by any intelligent life that may exist on the planet and can understand the messages.

Each message, a maximum of 160 characters-long was collated on a website called 'Friends of Earth' and all 25,880 messages were beamed together, a process that took two hours to complete.

The messages will travel at the speed of light or 300,000 km per second and take 20.3 years to reach the planet - the same period of time for a response to reach earth.

The antenna used for transmitting the messages was beaming the equivalent energy of 302 billion mobile phones or every person on earth sending 50 texts at one time.