The mission, which is scheduled to launch in October 2024, aims to determine whether microbial life could exist on the frozen moon.
After this weekend, the campaign that NASA is running to collect names for a “message in a bottle” that will be carried by the planned Europa Clipper mission will come to an end. If you were hoping to take part in the campaign but have not yet submitted your contribution, you should hurry up and do so. Ada Limón, the Poet Laureate of the United States, will compose a poem just for Europa, and it will be etched in Limón’s handwriting on a metal plate that will be affixed to the spaceship. The signatures will accompany the poem. Some people believe that Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, has a deep saltwater ocean beneath its icy crust. If this is the case, then the conditions on Europa could be favorable for the existence of microorganisms.
To participate in the Message in a Bottle campaign, all you have to do is visit the website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and fill out a brief signup form. Today, December 31st, is the deadline for submissions. As at this moment, more than 2.4 million individuals have contributed their names. Using an electron beam that is capable of producing lines of text that are less than one thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, the names of all of the individuals who took part in the experiment will be stenciled into microchips in extremely minute characters, as stated by NASA. The microchips will be attached to the plate that contains the poem before it is displayed.
The launch of the Europa Clipper spacecraft is slated to take place in October of 2024, and it will be another six years after that before it reaches the orbit of Jupiter. As soon as it arrives, it will conduct a series of close flybys in order to evaluate the possibility of habitability on Europa. Europa is one of the estimated 95 moons that orbit Jupiter, and it is one of the moons that is among the longest that humanity is aware of.