2024-04-01 18:00:00
In other astronomical milestone unprecedented, the NASA just confirmed that will send a secret message on his next mission to Europa, Jupiter’s icy ocean moon.
It is worth remembering that last year, the aforementioned North American space agency launched the call “Message in a bottle” campaign inviting all people to sign a message that would be sent to the entire solar system aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
That launch is scheduled for October 2024 from the Kennedy Space Station, located in Florida, USA, and is part of a mission whose main objective is to be able determine whether areas beneath Europa’s frozen surface can support human life.
The spacecraft that will orbit Jupiter will carry out 49 close flybys of Europewhich shows strong evidence beneath his frozen crust by one global ocean more than twice the volume of all of Earth’s oceans combinedwhile it will take almost 6 years to make the trip of 628 million kilometersso it is expected that reach its destination in April 2030.
Until now, the technicians of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Microdevices Laboratory ya han recorded more than 2,600,000 names on a silicon microchip the size of a 10-cent coin that will be attached to a commemorative plaquewhich, in turn, will include a handwritten copy of the poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa (“In Praise of Mystery: a Poem for Europe”), written by the famous and multi-award-winning American poet Ada Limón
“If life is found on Europa, it is most likely microbialso the commemorative plaque is more of a symbolic gesture that a genuine message to the extraterrestrial life formsper se,” he explained, through a statement, Lorz Glaza, owner of NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division.
Made entirely of metal y tantaliothe plate measures 18 centimeters long by 28 cm. Wide and has Graphic elements on both sides. Thus, while the outward-facing part contains waveformsthat is, visual representations of sound wavesderived from recordings of people saying the word “water” in 103 different languages, meanwhile, the inward-facing panel of the plate has visual references to radio frequencies which, as revealed by NASA, could be used to carry out interstellar communications.
“We have invested a lot thought and inspiration in the design of this platejust like in this mission itself,” commented, for his part, scientist Robert Pappalardo, in charge of the project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It’s been a journey of decades and we can’t wait to see what Europa Clipper shows us in this aquatic world“concluded the scientist.
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