(AGENPARL) - Roma, 1 Giugno 2023 - (AGENPARL) – gio 01 giugno 2023 June 01, 2023 
RELEASE 23-060
*NASA Invites Public to Sign Poem That Will Fly Aboard Europa Clipper *
europa_clipper_messag_ein_a_bottle.jpg
The “Message in a Bottle” campaign offers everyone the opportunity to
have their name stenciled onto a microchip bearing U.S. Poet Laureate Ada
Limón’s “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” The chip will ride
aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter and its moon Europa.
*/Credits: NASA/*
Members of the public are invited to add their names to an original poem
dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission before the spacecraft begins its
journey to Jupiter’s moon Europa in October 2024. The poem and the names
will be like a message in a bottle, traveling billions of miles as the
mission investigates whether the ocean thought to lie beneath Europa’s icy
crust could support life.
As part of the “Message in a Bottle” campaign, names received before
11:59 p.m. EST, Dec. 31, 2023, will be stenciled onto a microchip, along with
the poem, written by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón and titled "In Praise of
Mystery: A Poem for Europa."
To sign, read the poem, and hear Limón recite the poem in an animated video,
go to:
*https://go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle* [1]
The site also enables participants to create and download a customizable
souvenir – an illustration of your name on a message in a bottle against a
rendering of Europa and Jupiter – to commemorate the experience.
Participants are encouraged to share their enthusiasm on social media using
the hashtag #SendYourName.
“‘Message in a Bottle’ is the perfect convergence of science, art, and
technology, and we are excited to share with the world the opportunity to be
a part of Europa Clipper’s journey,” said Nicola Fox, associate
administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “I
just love the thought that our names will be traveling across our solar
system aboard the radiation-tolerant spacecraft that seeks to unlock the
secrets of Jupiter’s frozen moon.” 
The “Message in a Bottle” campaign is similar to other NASA projects that
have enabled tens of millions of people to send their names to ride along
with Artemis I and several Mars spacecraft. It draws from the agency’s long
tradition of shipping inspirational messages on spacecraft that have explored
our solar system and beyond. In the vein of NASA’s Voyagers’ Golden
Record, which sent a time capsule of sounds and images to communicate the
diversity of life and culture on Earth, the program aims to spark the
imagination of people around the world.
“Inspiration is what fueled the people who developed this flagship mission
and who hand-crafted the largest spacecraft NASA has sent to explore the
solar system. It’s what drives humanity to ask the big questions that this
mission will contribute to,” said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which leads the
development of Europa Clipper. “Inspiration is riding along with every
single name that will be making the journey to Europa.”
Europa Clipper [2] currently is being assembled, on camera [3], at JPL. Set
to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the spacecraft will travel 1.8
billion miles (2.6 billion kilometers) to reach the Jupiter system, where it
will arrive in 2030. As it orbits Jupiter and flies by Europa about 50 times,
it will log another half-billion miles (800,000 kilometers) while a suite of
science instruments [4] gathers data on the subsurface ocean, the ice crust,
and the moon’s atmosphere.
In January, Limón visited JPL [5] to see the spacecraft and learn more about
the mission. She was appointed 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in 2022 and reappointed for a second,
two-year term in April 2023. Limón was born in Sonoma, California, and is of
Mexican ancestry. She is the author of several poetry collections, including
“The Hurting Kind” and “The Carrying,” which won the National Book
Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
The Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center is the home of the
nation’s official poet, the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry – a
position that has existed since 1937. The Library of Congress is the
world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the
United States – and extensive materials from around the world – both on
site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and home of
the U.S. Copyright Office.
*More About the Mission *
Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places
below the surface of Europa that could support life. The mission’s three
main science objectives are to understand the nature of the ice shell and the
ocean beneath it, along with the moon’s composition and geology. The
mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better
understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our
planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the
Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in
collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the
Europa Clipper mission.
More information about Europa can be found here:
*https://www.nasa.gov/europa* [6]
-end-
*Press Contacts*
Karen Fox / Erin Morton
Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-805-9393
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
NASA news releases and other information are available automatically by
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[1] https://go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle
[2] https://europa.nasa.gov/
[4] https://europa.nasa.gov/spacecraft/instruments/
[5] https://europa.nasa.gov/mission-updates/63/a-voice-among-the-stars-poem-by-us-poet-laureate-ada-limon-will-ride-to-europa-on-nasa-spacecraft/
[6] https://www.nasa.gov/europa