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Although it’s not yet possible for humans to venture into the solar system’s fascinating ocean worlds, NASA is sending a cosmic message in a bottle to Jupiter’s moon Europa. More than 2 million names will remain.
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The launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is one of the most anticipated missions of 2024. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in October and begin its 1.8 billion mile (2.9 billion km) journey to Jupiter’s moon Europa. .
After reaching orbit in 2030, Europa Clipper will spend the next few years flying by the icy moon to see if the ocean beneath it can support life. Europa is one of several moons considered to be one of the oceanic world’s moons. The best place to look for extraterrestrial life.
In addition to a suite of nine scientific instruments, the Europa Clipper will carry a poem written by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon.
As part of his award recognition, Limón wrote:Mystery Praise: Poem to Europa” The original poem will be engraved in Limón’s handwriting on a tantalum metal plate that will be sealed in a vault meant to protect the spacecraft’s sensitive electronics from Jupiter’s harsh radiation.
The poem will be displayed inside the vault along with a microchip stenciled with the names of those who applied to NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign.
Once all the names are collected, they will be added to the spacecraft being assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The space agency provides Continuous live view of the Europa Clipper assembly on its website.
At JPL’s Microdevices Laboratory, engineers will use an electron beam to stencil names onto silicon chips the size of a dime. Each name is smaller than his 1/1000th of the width of a human hair.
NASA has a long history of sending names into space aboard missions such as Artemis I, the Perseverance probe, and the Parker Solar Probe.
Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft developed by NASA for planetary missions. Deploying a huge solar array, the European Clipper will be over 100 feet (30.5 meters) in diameter and 16 feet (about 5 meters) tall.
After arriving in orbit in April 2030, Europa Clipper flew over Europa nearly 50 times, eventually coming within 16 miles (25.7 kilometers) above the thick icy crust and flying over almost the entire moon. We plan to investigate.
The spacecraft will use cameras, spectrometers, ice-penetrating radar, and thermal instruments to understand how the moon formed and whether life could exist on an icy ocean world. .