NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will bring a triangular metal plate with an unique message when it releases in October 2024 and heads towards Jupiter's moon Europa.
This side of a celebratory plate installed on NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft includes U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón's handwritten In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for EuropaImage credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech.
Made from the metal tantalum and about 18 by 28 cm (7 by 11 inches), Europa Clipper's metal plate includes graphic components on both sides.
At its heart is an inscription of U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón's handwritten In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europatogether with a silicon microchip stenciled with more than 2.6 million names sent by the public.
The microchip will be the focal point of an illustration of a bottle in the middle of the Jovian system– a referral to NASA's Message in a Bottle project.
The outward-facing panel functions art that highlights Earth's connection to Europa.
Linguists gathered recordings of the word ‘water' spoken in 103 languages, from households of languages worldwide.
The audio files were transformed into waveforms (graphes of acoustic waves) and engraved into the plate.
The waveforms radiate out from a sign representing the American Sign Language indication for ‘water.'
In the spirit of the Voyager spacecraft's Golden Record, which brings noises and images to communicate the richness and variety of life in the world, the layered message on Europa Clipper intends to stimulate the creativity and provide a unifying vision.
“The material and style of Europa Clipper's vault plate are swimming with significance,” stated Dr. Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters.
“The plate integrates the very best mankind needs to use throughout deep space– science, innovation, education, art, and mathematics.”
“The message of connection through water, necessary for all types of life as we understand it, completely shows Earth's tie to this strange ocean world we are setting out to check out.”
In 2030, after a 2.6-billion-km (1.6-billion-mile) journey, Europa Clipper will start orbiting Jupiter, making 49 close flybys of Europa.
To figure out if there are conditions that might support life, the spacecraft's effective suite of science instruments will collect information about the moon's subsurface ocean, icy crust, thin environment, and area environment.
The electronic devices for those instruments are housed in an enormous metal vault developed to secure them from Jupiter's penalizing radiation. The celebratory plate will seal an opening in the vault.
Since looking for habitable conditions is main to the objective, the Drake Equation is engraved onto the plate also– on the inward-facing side.
Astronomer Frank Drake established the mathematical formula in 1961 to approximate the possibility of discovering innovative civilizations beyond Earth.
The formula has actually motivated and assisted research study in astrobiology and associated fields since.
