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Hyundai uses 11 cars to write a giant message to an astronaut

Hyundai uses 11 cars to write a giant message to an astronaut

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Making stuff on Earth that can be easily seen from space isn't exactly simple: there's the yellow glow of the world's metropolises at night, but in general, we just look like a blob of green, brown, and blue once you get a few hundred miles into the sky. That's no matter if you've got 11 cars at your disposal, though — and a desert as your canvas.

Hyundai put together a pretty clever marketing stunt where it took 11 of its Genesis sedans and choreographed a message from a 13-year-old Houston girl, Stephanie, to her astronaut father aboard the International Space Station. The message, "Steph [hearts] U," was written across the bone-dry expanse of Nevada's Delamar Dry Lake; the company notes that the message is bigger than one and a half Central Parks, all told. It's huge — so big, in fact, that Guinness has certified it as the world's "largest tire track image."

Here's the message as seen from space:

Hyundai seen from space

Hyundai isn't disclosing which astronaut was involved — probably because NASA doesn't take kindly to commercial promotion — but it's a pretty cool trick nonetheless. (Let's just hope it's a little less destructive to the environment than Greenpeace's stunt in Peru.)

International Space Station video: A timelapse of Earth