Buying land on another planet is still a distant dream for a common wage individual but NASA found a way to get your name imprinted on Jupiter’s surface by just visiting the official website. The American space agency, NASA, has invited people to grab the opportunity of graving names next to a poem by US poet Ada Limon.
The mission is named “Message in a Bottle” in which the robotic spaceship Europa Clipper will contain microchips with enrolled names laser engraved on them along with a poem titled, ‘In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa’ connecting two water worlds – Earth and Europa. The Europa Clipper will be launched next year in October to travel
As per reports, there are around 7 lakh applicants and once all the names are collected, technicians at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California’s Microdevices Laboratory will stencil the names in silicon microchip size using an electron beam. The names will be micro in size, less than 75 nanometers, or 1/1000th the width of a human hair.
In an official statement the agency said, “The chip will be attached to a metal plate engraved with the original poem ‘In Praise of Mystery’ written by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon to celebrate the mission. Riding on the exterior of the spacecraft, the poem and names will be like a message in a bottle as they make about 50 close flybys of the ocean world.”
The mission is aimed to collect data on Europa’s about atmosphere, icy crust, and subsurface ocean to understand whether or not the moon could support life
Shambhu Kumar is a science communicator, making complex scientific topics accessible to all. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
