Darpa has launched 10 balloons around the country as part of its “Network Challenge” contest. The first person or team to locate all of them will win $40,000.

Challenge winner will be the first individual to submit the locations of 10 8-foot balloons moored at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads. You can follow the news on Twitter,

Darpa says that the contest is meant to look at how “information spreads and propagates and becomes viral.”The contest will test how people organize themselves and how they validate information.

The balloons will only be visible during daylight hours beginning on Saturday, December 5. Collaborators will have approximately 9 days, until 12:00 PM (ET) on December 14, 2009, to collect the locations of any balloons not spotted, and submit their entry.

Teams from all over the United States have registered for this event. Some teams have developed iPhone apps while others are going to scour Twitter for clues. Even if you don’t belong to a group, you can still send out a tweet with the GPS coordinates if you happen to come across a balloon.

Internet entrepeneur Jon Cannell has launched www.red-balloons.com (above), one of the many websites dedicated to building the nationwide team to find DARPA’s red balloons.

The contest is meant to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original Internet, Arpanet, which was developed by Darpa. Darpa hopes to discover “new, collaborative ways to approach problems that were not dreamt of 40 years ago.”