NASA’s Europa Clipper Taking “Message in a Bottle” to Jupiter
Key Highlights :
NASA is bringing the excitement of space to the public by inviting space fans from around the world to join the Europa Clipper mission. Through the “Message in a Bottle” campaign, participants can add their names to a microchip that will be sent to Jupiter along with an original poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. This campaign is a continuation of NASA’s tradition of sending tokens of Earth on deep space missions, such as the Golden Record of the Voyager missions and the flash drive of the Artemis I mission.
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is a flagship mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. The spacecraft will perform 50 low-altitude flybys of Europa, coming as close as 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the surface in hopes of determining if Europa is capable of supporting life. The mission is scheduled to launch in October 2024, and is expected to arrive at Jupiter in April 2030.
The “Message in a Bottle” campaign invites participants to visit the Europa Clipper website, where they can listen to an audio reading of the poem, “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa”, narrated by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. Participants can also watch an animated video of the narrated reading by clicking Limón’s name at the bottom of the poem. Upon submitting their name and email address, the participant will receive an image of their name on a piece of string-tied, rolled paper in a corked glass bottle with Europa’s icy surface in the foreground and the massive Jupiter with a glistening Europa Clipper spacecraft in the background.
“‘Message in a Bottle’ is the perfect convergence of science, art, and technology, and we are excited to share with the world the opportunity to be a part of Europa Clipper’s journey,” said Dr. Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington DC.
The “Message in a Bottle” campaign is part of NASA’s effort to ignite the curiosity and imagination of space and astronomy fans from all over the world. With the launch of the Europa Clipper mission just a few years away, anticipation is building for what new science the mission will reveal about this mysterious, icy world.
Participants in the “Message in a Bottle” campaign can download the image of their name for free directly or via the email they receive and share with their family and friends. As the Europa Clipper mission continues to make progress, all participants can take pride in knowing that their name will be traveling across our solar system aboard the spacecraft that seeks to unlock the secrets of Jupiter’s frozen moon.
