Is A Queue Service Available in PHP

I have a set of emails(more than 50,000) to be sent. I cannot sit logged on to that application until all the emails have been sent (I have a counter which keeps me posted as to how many emails have been sent). what i need is when i click on the button "Send Emails" and if i close my browser i shud have my "send_ mail()" sending emails in the background. This is possible in ASP and i have used it before but i want to know whether its possible in PHP and if possible then How it is to be approached ?

If your web server has that privilege I recommend you launch a separate app (probably a perl or php script) that does the sending. Trouble is getting the feedback, but at least it won't block your script.

php wasn't built to send mass emails, it times out. use perl as it is way better for this kind of thing