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.

Europa Clipper is expected to launch in October 2024 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For more information on the mission go to: https://europa.nasa.gov/