Space enthusiasts can now send their names to Jupiter's moon Europa
NASA calls out space enthusiasts to get their names added to its Europa Clipper
NASA is calling out the ones who wish to send their namesto deep space beyond Mars.
The American space agency in a unique move is giving a chance to all the space enthusiasts to add their name to its Europa clipper.
The names will be added to a microchip that will ride aboard the spacecraft as it explores Jupiter’s moon Europa.
The spacecraft will make the 1.8 billion-mile journey to explore the ringed planet's moon.
The campaign, which is dubbed “Message in a Bottle” by NASA is only six weeks away as it closes at 11:59 pm EST, Dec 31, 2023.
As per the space agency's official website, since the beginning of the campaign, nearly 700,000 names have been submitted.
After all the names are gathered, the technicians at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will engrave them onto a dime-size silicon microchip using an electron beam.
Each line of text will be smaller than 1/1000th the width of a human hair, which is 75 nanometers.
'Message in a bottle'
The microchip, which will be attached to a metal plate, will be engraved with the original poem “In Praise of Mystery,” penned by US Poet Laureate Ada Limón to celebrate the mission.
The poem and the names will ride on the exterior of the spacecraft and will be like a message in a bottle as they make about 50 close flybys of the ocean world.
"The mission will log a half-billion miles (800 million kilometres) during these orbits as the spacecraft’s payload of science instruments gathers data on Europa’s subsurface ocean, icy crust, and atmosphere to determine if the moon could support life," said NASA's official website.
After the assembly of Europa Clipper is completed at JPL, the orbiter will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for its October 2024 launch.
(With inputs from agencies)