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The “Message in a Bottle” campaign allows everyone to have their name stenciled onto a microchip bearing U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” The chip will ride aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter and its moon Europa.

The U.S. space agency NASA is inviting people to have their names engraved on a microchip that will fly to the moon of Jupiter. The spaceship is scheduled to begin its 2.6 billion kilometer journey in October 2024 and it will take six years.

The transmission of the names is part of a time capsule project called “Message in a Bottle.” The characters will be engraved next to a poem by the American poet Ada Limon entitled “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europe.” NASA said: “The poem connects the two water worlds – Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with mysteries yet to be explored.”

More than 700,000 names have already been submitted to NASA. Engineers will use an electron beam to stencil them onto a tiny silicon microchip. NASA said: “Each line of text is less than 1/1000 the width of a human hair (75 nanometres).” NASA added: “The poem and names will act like a message in a bottle on the outside of the spacecraft as it makes about 50 close flybys of (Europa’s) ocean world.”

Europa is one of Jupiter’s 95 officially recognized moons. The Europa Clipper will collect data on the moon’s atmosphere, icy crust, and ocean. NASA said: “Europa is such a promising place better to understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond Earth.”

Sources:

• https://go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle
• https://www.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/time-is-running-out-to-add-your-name-to-nasas-europa-clipper/
• https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/now-you-can-send-your-name-to-jupiters-moon-on-nasas-europa-clipper-4580823

Written by Ebru Arman