NASA’s Message in a Bottle Campaign Closes Soon
If you were hoping to send your name into space with NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, time is running out. The campaign to gather names for this “message in a bottle” will be closing after this weekend. The signatures collected will accompany a poem written for Europa by US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, which will be engraved in Limón’s handwriting on a metal plate attached to the spacecraft.
Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, is believed to have a deep saltwater ocean beneath its icy crust, where conditions could be suitable for microbial life. The mission aims to investigate the potential habitability of Europa through a series of close flybys.
To participate in the Message in a Bottle campaign, participants just need to go to NASA’s website and fill out a short signup form before the deadline tomorrow, December 31. Thus far, more than 2.4 million people have added their names. According to NASA, the names of everyone who participated will be stenciled in tiny, tiny letters onto microchips using an electron beam that can create lines of text smaller than 1/1000th the width of a human hair, which will be affixed to the plate containing the poem.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft is set to launch in October 2024, and it will take an additional six years to reach Jupiter’s orbit. The spacecraft will be investigating Europa’s potential habitability and is one of an estimated 95 moons circling Jupiter.