NASA’s Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa

There’s a legacy of NASA spacecraft carrying inspirational messages into the cosmos, and Europa Clipper will continue this tradition when it launches in October 2024 to Europa, a moon of Jupiter that shows strong evidence of an ocean under its icy crust. A triangular plate seals an opening in the spacecraft’s vault, which protects Europa Clipper’s electronics from Jupiter’s radiation. The plate will carry a special message into the cosmos. At the heart of the artifact is an engraving of U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” along with a silicon microchip stenciled with more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public. The microchip will be the centerpiece of an illustration of a bottle amid the Jovian system – a reference to NASA’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign, which invited the public to send their names with the spacecraft. To learn more about the vault plate, go to: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech